In school, were you taught the rule of implied multiplication?

Not as such. I never heard the term before. But we were taught always to perform the operations within parentheses first. The result of that is the same.

Another example is ax/by, which should be treated as (ax)/(by).

Were were taught the Order of Operation “PEMDAS”:
Parentheses
Exponents
Multiplication
Division
Add
Subtract

We just memorized stuff and went from there, on our own.

The problem with PEMDAS, @Blackberry, is too many people think it means Multiplication comes before Division, and Addition comes before Subtraction.

Just remember that division is multiplication, and subtraction is addition.

Yeah. That’s easy for some to understand @ragingloli. Not so easy for others.

We were taught about numbers, not rabbits.

Yes, we were taught that two adjacent terms applied multiplication. And we were taught how to work with something like what you wrote, and that sure, you could add parentheses as you showed, and how that interacts with division.

It would be hard to do much algebra correctly without being taught that.

I don’t remember it being called “the rule of implied multiplication”. As I recall, it went along with a barrage of more complex problems involving all sorts of operations with division, in Advanced Algebra.

@Zaku I’m guessing it might be a language and culture thing. I think the concept is more what @ragingloli is asking. Since each culture will most likely call it different things. (Even if translated into English.)

I remember asking my dad for help with math homework one time. But as much as I had a conversational fluency, I didn’t recognize any of the math terms he was talking about (in his mother tongue). He was really angry and took it personally. Yelling about how he knew advanced mathematics and wasn’t dumb. (He was an engineer.)

Anyways, I ended up in tears. And never asked him for help with homework ever again.

@raum

Your dad wouldn’t have chance in the counting thread. ;p

We didn’t call it that, but we were told to do what is in the brackets first, which is the same thing.

I was not taught that rule. From what I was taught, you go left to right and apply the precedence rule of parenthetical expression, multiplication/division, addition/subtraction. I would interpret what you wrote as (a/b)(c+d).

I leaned that in high school algebra.

Yes, that rule has been beaten into me countless times from middle school algebra to present.

I don’t remember that term, but if I saw ax/by, I would treat it as (ax)/(by).

If I saw a/b(c+d); at first glance I would be unsure what to do, because I haven’t done much math in so long, but your explanation of what to do makes sense to me and I could solve it now that you showed me how to treat the equation.

I tried the expression in Wolfram Alpha and there was no application of the rule for implied multiplication. The same if I type the problem into Google or Duck Duck Go.

@LostInParadise
I just tried it with my newly purchased Casio fx-CG50
9/9(6+6).
The machine automatically converted it to 9/(9(6+6)), so it is clearly a rule it follows.