DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Well, since someone let the cat out of the bag and necroed the thread, I'm going to point out again, equations have those funny little symbols in them... two parallel lines above one another, something like this: =Geeks would say 288 and laugh at people who answered 2.
People who deal with real problems in real world know writing equation that way is dumb and simply asking for trouble.
So, yes, it's dumb to write an equation without an equals sign.
And, while Zeze is more or less correct, I'll point out again that any mathematician worth anything would not, as rchiu has said, write an expression as ambiguously as that one. Zeze and others don't seem to think it's ambiguous. Once again, implied multiplication is often given priority over other multiplication and division. E.g., 4x^3/2x^2 is generally evaluated to be 2x, not 2x^5 as an anal attentive fixation to BEDMAS or PEMDAS would result in. The 2 in front of the parenthesis is an implied multiplication. I wouldn't begrudge anyone who wanted to interpret that expression as meaning the 2 should be multiplied by the 12 before the division.

