Electronics > Beginners
Exponents
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Nusa:

--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 09, 2019, 03:25:25 pm ---That ranks alongside 1+2*3=9.

--- End quote ---

And that's exactly the answer you would have gotten in the original spreadsheet, VisiCalc! The original designers, in hindsight, admit that ignoring precedence was a poor choice on their part.

I don't know how Microsoft got their rules for Excel, but they're stuck with them now. Documenting them is safer than changing them and breaking umpteen existing spreadsheets.

So the problem with the OP's original question is that he presented it without the relevant context.
soldar:
Context is everything.

OTOH, I use Excel quite a bit and have never really been aware of this "problem".  I don't know if I have unconsciously worked around it or just been lucky or what.  Or maybe I have been getting wrong results and never became aware of their wrongness.
rstofer:
This has been linked a couple of times above:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations#Unary_minus_sign

There is no universal agreement on the precedence of the unary minus.  In some languages it might mean (-3)4 in others it might mean -(34)

And that's why we have parentheses.
MyEEVBlogAccount:
This question and circumstance seems awfully close to being an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem.  It seemed as though the question was asked within the standard mathematical domain, but in actually had to do how different systems may not work the same.  For the Excel formula language, they probably chose higher strength for negation because that is what most people without their mathematician hat on would probably think should happen.

Now, because of my academic background, I tend to write math problems that are complicated or are beyond the DMAS operations in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-formed_formula format without implied multiplication.  No ambiguity in reading, transcribing, or in reading off to another person.
Nusa:
There's no universal agreement on anything, because you can always find one person who will disagree with everything.

In the context of written math, the agebra meaning is about as close to internationally universal as one can get in this day and age. The verbal languages the reader speaks is largely irrelevant to this understanding, other than some tolerable differences in notation.

In the context of computer applications, it's less universal, obviously, but trends toward the algebraic meaning unless otherwise identified.

In the context of spoken languages, confusion reins for anyone but expert speakers of formula without written props. Math precedence isn't even on the minds of most people when language is created or evolved.
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