There’s some academic debate on it, you’ll hear different things. A hard interpretation of PEMDAS would say 16 is correct, however PEMDAS is fairly new and predated by algebra and implicit multiplication.
If you replace (2+2) with x:
8 / 2x = 4 / x = 4 / (2+2) = 1
Thus implicit multiplication takes priority over division. IMO, anyway.
Meanwhile:
8 / 2 * x = 4 * x = 4 * (2+2) = 16
Explicit multiplication follows PEMDAS, left to right for multiplication/division.
There’s some academic debate on it, you’ll hear different things. A hard interpretation of PEMDAS would say 16 is correct, however PEMDAS is fairly new and predated by algebra and implicit multiplication.
If you replace (2+2) with x:
8 / 2x = 4 / x = 4 / (2+2) = 1
Thus implicit multiplication takes priority over division. IMO, anyway.
Meanwhile:
8 / 2 * x = 4 * x = 4 * (2+2) = 16
Explicit multiplication follows PEMDAS, left to right for multiplication/division.