Arithmetic/Properties of Operations

Associative

The Associatve property of real numbers is: $(a+b)+c=a+(b+c)$ for all real number a,b,c
This implies that the order in which addition is done does not matter. Note however this only applies to addition and not to subtracting numbers.

Multiplication shares the same property. $(ab)c=a(bc)$ As in addition the groups or the association of the numbers in the parenthesis change. The actual order of the numbers remains the same.