This summer, battle lines were drawn over a simple math problem: 8 ÷ 2(2 + 2) = ? If you divide 8 by 2 first, you get 16, but if you multiply 2 by (2 + 2) first, you get 1. So, which answer is right?

When this reporter, ahem, asked for a friendly reminder (wink-wink) about the math concept, Sykora explained the distributive property of multiplication. “For example, if you have 12 times 3, instead ...