Commutative property

The commutative property says that the order of the numbers when adding or multiplying can be changed without changing the answer. For example, both $2+8$ and $8+2$ are equal to 10, and both $5*7$ and $7*5$ are equal to 35. This can be done with any numbers, or with more than two numbers.

Definition

The definition of commutative property of addition is $a+b=b+a$. a and b are variables and can be any number.

Some operations like dividing are not commutative. For instance, $6÷3$ is 2, but $3÷6$ is $\frac{1}{2}$. Subtraction is not commutative either: $6-2$ is 4, but $2-6$ is negative 4.

Higher mathematics

In higher mathematics like calculus, there are other commutative operations besides adding and multiplying. Commutative property must hold for each two elements of an Abelian group.

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