That One Terrible Problem Gone Viral

[P6 and up: Number Patterns]

Kept you waiting, huh?

It's a headache when people do not use mathematical notations properly.

You know what I'm talking about, no? That stupid 9 = 90, 8 = 72, 7 = 56, 6= 42 question where you need to find 3 = ?

It should be a crime in the misuse of notation to throw off one's sense of reason. Personally, I've always viewed the 'equal sign' as a tree table instead, where 9x8 = 72, 8x7 = 56 and so on, which meant that in this pattern, 18 was my first answer. f(x) = x^2 + x --> 12 was my second answer.

But really, who gets to decide what the right answer is, or should look like? When rules are broken by the person setting the puzzle, they have no recourse for when rules are broken by the other party as well.