A task from a school textbook has baffled thousands of people and even confuses a calculator

A high school-level math problem has been causing a lot of controversy online. The equation looks elementary, but even a calculator confuses, and professors from universities have already begun to make assumptions about the correct answer.

 

The equation itself looks like this: 8 ÷ 2 (2+2) = ?

But everyone gets either 16 or 1, which is obviously a completely different number. The author who initially posted the equation on the network suggests solving it like this: action in brackets, then multiplication, then division. Thus, a unit is obtained and it looks logical. How do you get a different answer? In fact, everything is not so difficult. You just need to do the division first, and then the multiplication!

 

And oddly enough, both answers can be correct. There are two most common systems that determine the order of operations within mathematical limits. In one of them, the priority remains for multiplication, and in the second, division is preferred. Today, such an equation would not be given to anyone in school. That is why it would cause such controversy. And of course, the calculator is not able to solve it either.

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