Lol. Well- that’s certainly one use for it.
Math is a language, it doesn’t really matter what symbols you use or such so long as you know what to do and what it means. Of course anytime we want to use a language to communicate with others- to be able to write or read instructions specifying how long to cut a piece of wood or how much salt to add to a dish- it helps to have standardization. If I knew “draspots meepmops” meant roughly the same as 1/16th, I can call it that, but would you know what that meant? So we standardize what numbers are called and operations and the symbols for them. Like any language we need a way to create a consistent structure, sentences can be difficult or impossible to read or carry multiple meanings if we don’t have rules on what order words go in. “John brought Sarah the pie” could mean Sarah brought the pie if English didn’t specific the order so we knew John was the one performing the action.
So order of operations lets us include multiple operations and be able to tell what goes first. We actually see order of operations frequently. Almost any receipt or invoice for example- calculating the discount before the tax or after the tax can drastically affect a bill as one example. Inventory at stores and warehouses or shopping and recieving or even ordering things like building materials for a home are all possible examples. But… let’s get real here. Most people probably won’t use the actual OOO much or at all right? You probably aren’t sharing and communicating these calculations frequently and in your own head etc. you can visualize the problem without formal use of OOO based on what makes sense generally. Most people don’t grow up and use formal OOO notation frequently. So what is the point?
The point is that many careers using math may need to. Often higher laying careers. Even if you don’t use it in your career- a lot of the basic math stuff is required to be able to facilitate it even be able to understand higher math as you study in school. Learning it allows the book to communicate what the problem is and the teacher to understand what you answer and to help you if you need it. If you go to learn most skills you’ll often start with fundamental drills you won’t likely use in “really” doing that skill. The drills are to get you to a point where you can learn the stuff you will use or to give you what you need to use the later on stuff.
“But I’m not going to be some high paid technical professional who needs math!”
Is that… you can look at any kid that’s like in 3rd or 4th grade where OOO is often taught and you can say at that point in their life “yeah. You’ll never have a career where you need math. Let me teach you something you’ll need like how to sweat pipes or be an effective team lead…”
You can’t. It’s a bit late to start learning the basics and work your way through learning the language of math when and if you decide you want take college level math when you’re older for a career with math. School generally tries to give kids the tools they’ll need to specialize their education and career paths as they grow older. You learn how to read graphs and how often do the majority of Americans read graphs every day? Some do, and often they get laid pretty decent compared to their peers.
You mentioned receipts and now all I can think of is how the auto-calculated tips restaurants give almost always include the tax making them wrong. I'm all for tipping but don't give me an amount and tell me it's such and such % of my bill when it's not. I absolutely refuse to use those amounts.
lol. A good example I didn’t think of, and very true. I traditionally tip very well. Sometimes extremely well. But… the including the tax in the tip and other little math errors and tricks they use really…. I feel bad for the servers but it really just makes me usually tip less than I would have. It’s not punitive- the servers likely have no hand in setting those things- but it’s a psychological thing. Like you said, it really bothers me. It bothers that part of me that can’t stand things being off and it bothers that part of me that thinks about how many people can barely afford a night out as a frat or what not and don’t do the math or realize it and end up overpaying. We can argue that it helps offset bad tippers but I’d argue that by the same token the server shouldn’t be blamed for things they don’t control we shouldn’t penalize people trying to tip decently for those who don’t.
Math is a language, it doesn’t really matter what symbols you use or such so long as you know what to do and what it means. Of course anytime we want to use a language to communicate with others- to be able to write or read instructions specifying how long to cut a piece of wood or how much salt to add to a dish- it helps to have standardization. If I knew “draspots meepmops” meant roughly the same as 1/16th, I can call it that, but would you know what that meant? So we standardize what numbers are called and operations and the symbols for them. Like any language we need a way to create a consistent structure, sentences can be difficult or impossible to read or carry multiple meanings if we don’t have rules on what order words go in. “John brought Sarah the pie” could mean Sarah brought the pie if English didn’t specific the order so we knew John was the one performing the action.
“But I’m not going to be some high paid technical professional who needs math!”
You can’t. It’s a bit late to start learning the basics and work your way through learning the language of math when and if you decide you want take college level math when you’re older for a career with math. School generally tries to give kids the tools they’ll need to specialize their education and career paths as they grow older. You learn how to read graphs and how often do the majority of Americans read graphs every day? Some do, and often they get laid pretty decent compared to their peers.