The parts of mathematics that are eternal and discovered are separate from the parts that are arbitrary and invented. We are talking almost exclusively about the latter.

Both!

It’s ambiguous

No, it’s not.

Do you read the things you write?!

And Distribution applies to brackets/parentheses where they have a coefficient. In other words, same same.

No.

What?

No!

Do you even know what your argument is?

The central point you spammed a dozen people with, here in this thread from last year, is an insistence that multiplying by a parenthetical is different from distribution. You explicitly said 2(3+1) and 2*(3+1) are not the same thing. So when your hot second of Google knowledge shows (3+1), *2, converted to RPN, you do not get to claim that's the same thing as distribution, goddammit!

You didn’t put a comma between 3 and -6, so no, it’s not 3 and -6, it’s 3-6. That’s what you wrote, that’s what it is.

No, dumbass, (3) -6 is the quantities 3 and -6 in the format (A)B. A format you go on to say is fine with zero reflection or recognition, because you're experiencing this conversation one sentence at a time and putting absolutely zero thought into context or meaning.

I fucking hated teachers like you. You're not listening. You're just preaching.

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

multiplying by a parenthetical is different from distribution

Ok, let's tweak it (I've practically never used RPN, but only took me a couple of minutes of research to work it out)...

1/2x3 same as 1 2 ÷ 3 x

1/2(3) same as 1 2 3 x ÷

...and to bring it back to the original question...

8/2x(2+2)

8/2(2+2)

Learn something new every day, :-) and took me no time at all to debunk your claim that it's not possible in RPN.

(3) -6 is the quantities 3 and -6 in the format (A)B

And what do you do with these "quantities"? Multiply them? If so then it's exactly the same as A(B). If you're talking about something else then tell me what you're talking about.

zero thought

I managed to work out how to do distribution in RPN, something you claimed couldn't be done, so who's the one giving zero thought?

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

If so then it’s exactly the same as A(B). If you’re talking about something else then tell me what you’re talking about.

I'm talking about how you said (A)B for A=3 B=-6 equals -3. By all means, tell me it's because you read it as 3 - 6, because that's my fucking point. The math is immutable. The syntax can be ambiguous.

I managed to work out how to do distribution in RPN, something you claimed couldn’t be done, so who’s the one giving zero thought?

You don't understand the claim. No shit RPN can perform the individual steps of working through (A+B)C. But that equation does not exist in RPN. If you insist even (A+B)*C is a different equation, then obviously AC*BC*+ is a different equation. You can do the math for distribution, using RPN, but the concept of distribution does not exist within RPN.

You can't have rules about parentheses in a notation that does not have parentheses.

What you did is only equivalent. In the exact same way that evaluating a parenthetical gets the same result as distribution. Because that part is math, not notation. And it doesn't matter if you do the multiplication using repeated addition, or the Russian peasant method, or floating point, or whateverthefuck. The math doesn't change... but many competing methods are equally valid.

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I’m talking about how you said (A)B for A=3 B=-6 equals -3

No, that's not what I said, since that's not what you said. You didn't write (A)B where A=3 and B=-6, you wrote (3)-6, which is 3-6 (the brackets are redundant as they are 2 terms separated by an operator), which is -3. If you intended this to be interpreted as a single term then you should've written (3)(-6), which is -18. Alternatively, if you had written (3)6, that would be equal to 18, but you wrote (3)-6, which is 2 terms separated by a minus. You wrote (A)-B, not (A)B (or (A)(B)), and so I read it as (A)-B.

The syntax can be ambiguous.

No, it's not. Now that I know what you mean, you just failed to write it the way you apparently intended - you didn't follow the syntax rules for multiplying by a negative.

but the concept of distribution does not exist within in RPN

So what you're really saying, as far as I can tell, is brackets themselves don't exist in RPN.

evaluating a parenthetical gets the same result as distribution

Except when it doesn't, which is my original point.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

So what you’re really saying, as far as I can tell, is brackets themselves don’t exist in RPN.

As far as you can tell. Really. Like it's an oblique implication, and not the next sentence.

If this is the rate you absorb information when it's repeatedly laid out in plain fucking English, I'm not sure we'll live long enough for you to grasp why your original point was off-topic. Good day.

[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 1 points 8 months ago

As far as you can tell. Really. Like it’s an oblique implication

Indeed there was an oblique implication in me saying "as far as I can tell", but you seemed to miss it (I was wording it in a polite way, rather than being downright rude like a lot of people in here seem to have no trouble with at all, but water off a duck's back...).

your original point was off-topic

The OP was about an e-calculator giving the wrong answer, so I don't see how explaining why it's doing that is off-topic (in your view).

Good day

Bye now.