Question

to solve for a variable, you need to use the order of operations backwards. In a short paragraph, explain why it is important to work backwards. Unte

Answer 1

In order to solve for a variable for example in the expression:

A = B * H / 2

when we need to solve for H (while the original expressionis solved for A), we work slowly backwards trying to reverse all operations and leave the variable we want to solve for isolated on one side of the equal sign.

So we multiply both sides by "2" (trying to reverse the division by 2 the appears in the original expression). We do:

A * 2 = B * H

Now we need to reverse the multiplication B times H, and to isolate "H" we DIVIDE both sides by B (reversing that multiplication):

(A * 2)/ B = H

So we see that we slowly reverse the original operations (similar to the concept of working those operations "backwards").