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Why do we need an order of operations?
Example: In a room there are 2 teacher's chairs and 3 tables each with 4 chairs for the students. How many chairs are in the room?
We know there are 14, but how do we write this calculation? If we just write
2 + 3 x 4
how does a reader know whether the answer is
2 + 3 = 5, then multiply by 4 to get 20 or
3 x 4 = 12, then 2 + 12 to get 14?