Originally Posted by Minte

I'm not suggesting that the order of operations didn't exist 30 years ago. As new engineers we were all made aware of it. What I am saying is that it wasn't accepted in engineering school. Many trigonometric solutions were pages of calculations. We were required to do these without computers, which weren't available or hand held calculators. The precise nature of the work I chose doesn't allow for potentials. Only absolutes.

The fact that the basic laws of mathematics exist doesn't mean they are relevant today. I would wager,that of everyone that posted in this thread there might be one or two who even know what the sine of an angle is. Calculating seconds of a degree was a process that would take time. Today,with 3 mouse clicks we can measure angles.