this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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Math Memes

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Memes related to mathematics.

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1: Memes must be related to mathematics in some way.
2: No bigotry of any kind.

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[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 1 points 1 month ago (17 children)

Jokes and tricks that hinge on unclear communication (eg: not using parenthesis or other notation to make intent clear), and then are smug when people are tricked, remind me of the old xkcd https://xkcd.com/169/

I just saw some jokes about factorials so at least I got this one, heh.

[–] kameecoding@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago (16 children)

Sorry but what is unclear in OPs image?

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network -5 points 1 month ago (15 children)

25 - 5 ÷ 5 when read naively left to right looks like it would be "25 - 5 = 20. Then take that and divide by 5, for an answer of 4". It would be clearer to write it as (25 - 5) ÷ 5 or 25 - (5 ÷ 5) depending on what's intended.

You see those kind of "gotcha!" posts online sometimes, where someone posts a problem that tempts you into doing order of operations wrong.

Someone who sees how to do it correctly immediately and thinks everyone knows that is invited to view https://xkcd.com/2501/ as well.

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