Why height*height != height**2.

Question

in BMI question🙋 if I find BMI using weight/height*height it's not passing all test cases.

But if I use weight/height**2 to find BMI it passed all test cases.

I want to know reason behind it.
Or it's just malfunctioning 😊

Note: height is in floating value.

Answer 1

** operator has higher precedence over / operator. On the other hand, * operator shares equal precedence with / operator.

weight / height * height

Is processed from left to right because * and / operator shares the same precedence.

weight / height ** 2

`height ** 2` is processed first. The result is then used as RHS operand for division operation, using <weight> as the LHS operand.

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/python3/operators_precedence_example.htm

Answer 2

They are different because:

Weight/height*height == (Weight/height)*height
That's mean that first divide and then multiply.

To solve the question you need the following:
Weight/(height*height) == Weight/height**2
That's mean that first multiply and then divide.

I hope this helps you to understand what's happening in the operation.

Answer 3

I appreciate your work CLAD and Ipang .

You guys are rock 🤘