Math can be useful. It can also be elegant, even beautiful — a word you’ll often hear mathematicians say when they describe the discovery of a nugget of surprising insight.

That seemingly simple equation that ricocheted across the internet recently was neither useful nor elegant. By now, you’ve likely seen it:

8 ÷ 2(2+2) = ?

“I HATE this,” Amie Wilkinson, a mathematician at the University of Chicago, commented on a Facebook post by a colleague about the equation, echoing the disdain felt by many mathematicians for the trending question.

Kenneth Ribet of the University of California, Berkeley described it as “irksome.”

“I didn’t care. I wasn’t interested,” said Greg Kuperberg of the University of California, Davis. “I stared at it a little bit and moved on.”