Viral maths problem leaves people stumped so can YOU work out the answer?

This maths puzzle has gone viral and people just can’t agree on how to solve it.

The tricky maths problem has got people scratching their heads and at each others throats as some are convinced that the answer is 16 while others are certain it is 1.

So what do you think is the right answer? 16 or 1?

You’ll be pleased to hear you were bang on.

The surprising fact is, both 16 and 1 are correct, depending on where you learned maths.

Mike Breen, the Public Awareness Officer for the American Mathematical Society, told Popular Mechanics: “The way it’s written, it’s ambiguous. In math, a lot of times there are ambiguities. Mathematicians try to make rules as precise as possible.”

So if you subscribe to the PEMDAS method, you would tackle these problems in this order: parentheses (brackets), exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, from left to right.

That would mean you would work out the brackets first (2+2) = 4, then multiply the 4 by the 2 outside the brackets to get 8 and finally divide the 8 by the other 8 to get 1.

But if you prefer the BODMAS method: brackets, orders, division, multiplication, addition, subtraction.

That would mean you would work out the brackets first (2+2) = 4, then divide the 4 by the 2 outside the brackets to get 2 and finally multiply the 2 by the 8 to get 16.

End of class.

This isn’t the only mind-blogging maths test that took the internet by storm.

Parents struggled to solve this incredibly tricky maths question that is designed for SIX-YEAR-OLDS.

And only one in ten people can pass this test without using a calculator.

Plus, this maths problem left Facebook users scratching their heads… so can YOU solve it?