Everything in the way we represent mathematics is convention. There is no true natural and correct way to write the concept of adding two numbers together. We have agreed to use “+” to convey that, but we could just as easily have decided upon “×” instead. The symbols only have the meaning we assign to them – but consider how confusing it would be if half the world used “+” for addition and “×” for multiplication, and half used the reverse. So – we agree on a consensus for what the symbols mean and the order to apply them so that we can share and communicate mathematical concepts with less confusion.
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