Elementary Arithmetic - Addition

Addition

+ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
4 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
5 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
6 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
7 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
8 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
9 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

What does it mean to add two natural numbers? Suppose you have two bags, one bag holding five apples and a second bag holding three apples. Grabbing a third, empty bag, move all the apples from the first and second bags into the third bag. The third bag now holds eight apples. This illustrates the combination of three apples and five apples is eight apples; or more generally: "three plus five is eight" or "three plus five equals eight" or "eight is the sum of three and five". Numbers are abstract, and the addition of a group of three things to a group of five things will yield a group of eight things. Addition is a regrouping: two sets of objects which were counted separately are put into a single group and counted together: the count of the new group is the "sum" of the separate counts of the two original groups.

This operation of combining is only one of several possible meanings that the mathematical operation of addition can have. Other meanings for addition include:

  • comparing ("Tom has 5 apples. Jane has 3 more apples than Tom. How many apples does Jane have?"),
  • joining ("Tom has 5 apples. Jane gives him 3 more apples. How many apples does Tom have now?"),
  • measuring ("Tom's desk is 3 feet wide. Jane's is also 3 feet wide. How wide will their desks be when put together?"),
  • and even sometimes separating ("Tom had some apples. He gave 3 to Jane. Now he has 5. How many did he start with?").

Symbolically, addition is represented by the "plus sign": +. So the statement "three plus five equals eight" can be written symbolically as 3 + 5 = 8. The order in which two numbers are added does not matter, so 3 + 5 = 5 + 3 = 8. This is the commutative property of addition.

To add a pair of digits using the table, find the intersection of the row of the first digit with the column of the second digit: the row and the column intersect at a square containing the sum of the two digits. Some pairs of digits add up to two-digit numbers, with the tens-digit always being a 1. In the addition algorithm the tens-digit of the sum of a pair of digits is called the "carry digit".

Read more about this topic:  Elementary Arithmetic

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