Parentheses are very important in spreadsheets because like all programming, spreadsheet formulas have to be very specific. A big formula, especially one like Viete’s approximation of pi, likely will require us to think both in parentheses and in creating formulas that naturally build a series. This one is quite interesting and you will know if you are approaching the right answer if you are approaching the value of pi. So be careful and watch your (parentheses).
Tag: order of operations
Distributivity
The distributive property turns out to be central to a surprising variety of important mathematics. One of the most valuable is to use it to break products into two pieces to make them easier to compute. Thus 56+510 is easier to solve in your head than 5*16. Here again we take what is generally considered an abstract principle and make it a concrete spreadsheet picture made up of different rectangles.