The Purplemath Forums

Hi there, I'm trying to relearn Algebra from the ground up, and its been a long time so I have a bit of a noobish question regarding an equation in the book I'm reading. So it says to use the ordering system, PEMDAS Parentheses Exponents Multiplications Divisions Addition Subtraction Now given the f...

Now given the following... 9 / 3 x 7 - 2^3 + 7 Following the rules as above, I would do 2^3 and then 3 x 7. But this is wrong, so my confusion is why the division comes before the first multiplication or is it simply a matter of how it's written? This is exactly the ambiguity discussed in the last ...