Maths homework help?

Question

A colleague brought in her daughter's homework and no one can figure it out!! Please help as we are all rusty with maths:

The symbols !, @ and # have substituted mathematical symbols. The idea of the exercise is to find out which symbol (x, -, +, etc) each symbol represents.

Equation 1: 3!4 = (3x4) +4

= 12+4

=16

Equation 2: 5@2 = 4x5-2

=20-2

=18

Equation 3: 3#5 = 3+5/2*3

= 8/6

=4/3

Any help would be appreciated. Even if you just give a clue, if you do not want to just solve it for me, although I do assure you, this is for a girl who has tried to do this and just can't figure it out.

Answer 1

haha it will take some complex equations or you wrote them down but by my guess is if thats the original equations then they are all no-solutions

Answer 2

I'm guessing the exercise is much simpler than it appears at first glance:

! = x

@ = -

# = +

I think the question wasn't presented clearly.  If this is for a class that is algebra or earlier (considering it's the beginning of the year), this is probably what they're looking for.

Then again, I could be wrong...but I don't see how else it could work.