There might be some simple explanation but i cannot figure it out.

  • lemmyng@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    You can’t just add the balances and expect it to amount to the same as the spend. Consider this: you spend 0, 0, 0, 50. Your balances are 50, 50, 50, 0. Adding up the balances you get 150. What does this mean? Absolutely nothing.

  • just2look@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    The balance has no reason to add up to 50. So there is no extra anything. If you kept spending 1 each row, and then summed the balance at the end, it would be massively higher than the 50 you started with.

  • Fake4000@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This calculation is a bit wrong.

    Lets say for example you keep spending 5 after your first payment, then your totals at the bottom would be wrong and would look like this.

    The correct way to do this is to accumulate the expenditure as your balance goes down, so that total for both spend and balance equals 50.

    I hope this makes sense.

  • CountVon@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Summing a balance column is never correct. Take any example that doesn’t end in a zero balance and it’s easy to see that the balance column’s sum is meaningless:

  • CraigeryTheKid@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    OMG I do math all the time and the way the question was phrased I fell for it. (Summing balance)

    I’m going to feel dumb for the rest of the day.

  • ArtVandelay@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Data scientist here! What you have discovered is what’s known in data analytics as a semi-additive measure. Instead of summing the balance column, you would count it, and get a measure that showed how many transactions took place, but not a balance. Of course, there’s no reason to simply count the one column, a row count would suffice and return the same.

  • nsomneeak@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Put the 50 where the word balance is, and go diagonal. 50-20=30, 30-15=15, 15-9=6, 6-6=0

  • Zammy95@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Remember in school when they made a big deal about the order of operations? This is why. It’s not clear as to why, as you’re not seeing the entire picture though, just some numbers.