Remember when you were in school, learning math, and you learned about the importance of the order of operations? You do? Okay, good. Pop quiz:
1 + 1 * 8 = ?
The answer is 9, not 16. Why? Because multiplication has precedence. If you want to get to 16 with those numbers, we’ll need to add some parentheses:
(1+1) * 8 = 16
Because parentheses have precedence over everything else.