48/2(9+3)

Instead of making the answer (look) ambigous or make people question what you're really trying to convey, why not make it intuitive? Like this:



In common usage, division and multiplication takes an atomic value in front of it and an atomic value afterwards. An atomic value is something indivisible, or, if you want to, the "shortest"/easiest way to express a number. So 2 is an atom, and 9 + 3 is not an atom. As you guys probably have learned today, people may "debate" whether 4x is an atom or not, and whether 2(9 + 3) or 2(12) is an atom. Common usage is: If it can't be shortened more, it is an atom, otherwise it isn't.

Using common usage, the answer is 2. Using common sense, don't write mathematical expression which may be ambigous.

Noah

(since this is still the funhouse)

Yay for ambiguous mathematical expressions!