I wrote a (very long) blog post about those viral math problems and am looking for feedback, especially from people who are not convinced that the problem is ambiguous.
It’s about a 30min read so thank you in advance if you really take the time to read it, but I think it’s worth it if you joined such discussions in the past, but I’m probably biased because I wrote it :)
That was a very astute observation you made there! The fact is, for the very reason you stated, there is in fact no such thing as “implicit multiplication” - it is a term which has been made up by people who have forgotten Terms (the first thing you mentioned) and The Distributive Law (the second thing you mentioned). As you’ve noted., these are 2 different rules, and lumping them together as one brings exactly the disastrous results you might expect from lumping different 2 rules together as one…
See here for explanation of all the various rules, including textbook references and proofs.