According to the calculator they have different answers, the first being 32 and the latter being 17. I got the answer 22 when i worked it out.
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Learning math means you have to learn the language, grammar and punctuation of math. Each of the symbols in those equations is an instruction about what to do and what order to do it in. u/cavalier78 has a great example of how grammar and punctuation can totally change the meaning of a sentence. The same is true for those equations. The parentheses are in different places (the punctuation is different), so they have different meanings.
The other answers mentioned the order of operations or PEMDAS. This is the main grammar rule for these types of equations. Several other comments explained this well.
One thing that can confusing when this is taught is that the multiplication and division (MD) have equal precedence. When you get to the multiplication and division step you start at the left hand side of the equation and work towards the right, doing all of the multiplication and division in the order that they are written. The same is true for addition and subtraction (AS).
This language of math is something that mathematicians came to an agreement on. As long as everyone is speaking the same mathematical language and following the same math grammar rules, we can communicate with each other about math. We could have come up with different rules, but it would be really confusing to communicate with people who don’t use those same rules.
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