What is mathematical association?

Answer 1

The associative property is one that some operations defined over some sets may possess. If the operation is denoted by ~ then the associative property implies that

(A ~ B) ~ C = A ~ (B ~ C) and so, without loss of generality, either expression can be expressed as A ~ B ~ C.

Some common operations, such as subtraction, are not associative over the set of numbers since:

(3 - 2) - 1 = 1 - 1 = 0

while

3 - (2 - 1) = 3 - 1 = 2