Looks like you’re the only one left who doesn’t get it (or won’t admit it). Or, you’re messing with us.
The reason we have precedence rules is to avoid misunderstanding how operators should be applied. You can say “48 divided by 2 x (9+3) is not the same as 48 divided by 2(9+3)” but you’d be wrong. Using the language of math, we start with an ordered set of rules and an equation.
Rules:
Ops inside parens are evaluated first
Mult & Div operations are equal and are applied next
Add & Subt ops are equal and are applied last
If 2 operations have the same precedence, apply them from left to right.
The equation:
48/2(9+3) (which is the same as saying 48/2*(9+3). The * is implied in the first form.)
According to the rules, we evaluate the operations *inside* the parens first and get
48/2(9+3) =
48/2(12) =
48/2*12
Now that the parens have been evaluated, apply the mult and div operations. This problem has 2 of them, so evaluate from left to right:
48/2*12 =
24*12 = 288
“and an equation”
Sorry, I meant “an expression”.
Page 3 is especially enlightening as to why the user should read the owners manual when using a calculator.