rasensprenger , 7 months ago

your first line is correct, but while it looks like 1 (and it might be under different conventions), evaluating according to standard rules (left to right if not disambiguated by pemdas) yields

2(2+2)/2(2+2)
= 2(4)/2(4)
= 2*4/2*4
= 8/2*4
= 4*4
= 16

Using implicit multiplication in quotients is weird and really shouldn't happen, this would usually be written as 8/(2*(2+2)) or 8/2*(2+2) and both are much clearer

Your second argument only works if you treat 2(2+2) as a single "thing", which it looks like, but isn't, in this case