Associative Property of Addition

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Definition

Associative Property of Addition Is the property which states that for all real numbers a, b, and c, their sum is always the same, regardless of their grouping: [math]\left (a+b\right )+c=a+\left (b+c\right)[/math]. Property stating that when addends are grouped in different ways the sum is the same.

Supplementary definitions

Associativity
In mathematics, associativity is a property that a binary operation can have. It means that, within an expression containing two or more of the same associative operators in a row, the order that the operations are performed does not matter as long as the sequence of the operands is not changed. That is, rearranging the parentheses in such an expression will not change its value. This extract is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. It uses material from the article "Associativity", retrieved 7 Jan 2009.

Examples

[math](5+3)+1=5+(3+1)=9 \,[/math]

[math](15+5+1)+10=(15+5)+(1+10)=15+(5+1+10)=31\,[/math]

Links

Web Resources

Wikibooks - Algebra I in Simple English