Associativity

Associative property is a property of mathematical operations (like addition and multiplication). It means that if you have more than one of the same associative operator (like +) in a row, the order of operations does not matter.

For example, if you have , there are two plus signs (+) in a row. This means we can add it in either this order:



Or this order:



The answer comes out the same both ways because addition is associative.
In other words, associativity means:



Not all operations are associative. Subtraction is not associative, which means:



This is true because:


And:


Also, associativity is different from commutativity, which lets you move the numbers around.

Category:Algebra
Category:Rules of inference