6 + (4/2) will do what you want, for the reasons already well covered. As an aside, have you ever really looked at the way mathematics is typeset in books? Some of it does not bear close examination from a precedence/correctness perspective - missing parentheses, etc. The problem was that I was trying to teach students that many of their mistakes would disappear if they could reliably read what they just wrote. ________________________________________ From: pharo-project-bounces@lists.gforge.inria.fr [pharo-project-bounces@lists.gforge.inria.fr] On Behalf Of Noury Bouraqadi [bouraqadi@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 6:29 AM To: Pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr Subject: [Pharo-project] Surprising binary messages! 5 is the surprising answer of the expression: 6 + 4 / 2 It should be 8 But, I got 5 in both 1.1 and 1.2. Noury