There are some lapses in thinking multiplying is all just 1x1.
Let’s think of it differently by thinking of apples.
When we add, we are counting how many apples in total we have. Let’s say we count all the apples in a tree, and we have 25. Then on another tree, there are another 25. We add those (25+25) and we get a total of 50 apples.
When we multiply, we’re considering units or groups of things. If I have a bag of apples, and each bag hold 5 apples, then I have 5 apples total. If I have multiple bags (let’s say 8 bags) then I’m going to multiply.
Since each bag holds 5 apples, and I have 8 total bags, I’ll multiply 5 apples (per bag) by 8 bags which leaves me with 40 apples.
In your question, we would have 11 groups of 11, which ends with 121; you would use 11+11 if you were adding 2 groups of 11.
zokahlo t1_jaaotml wrote
Reply to ELI5 why is 11 x 11 not 11? by [deleted]
There are some lapses in thinking multiplying is all just 1x1.
Let’s think of it differently by thinking of apples.
When we add, we are counting how many apples in total we have. Let’s say we count all the apples in a tree, and we have 25. Then on another tree, there are another 25. We add those (25+25) and we get a total of 50 apples.
When we multiply, we’re considering units or groups of things. If I have a bag of apples, and each bag hold 5 apples, then I have 5 apples total. If I have multiple bags (let’s say 8 bags) then I’m going to multiply.
Since each bag holds 5 apples, and I have 8 total bags, I’ll multiply 5 apples (per bag) by 8 bags which leaves me with 40 apples.
In your question, we would have 11 groups of 11, which ends with 121; you would use 11+11 if you were adding 2 groups of 11.