Okay, how about an expression to sort out the dividing and multipling, just as an example to people who think otherwise.
So we have the expression
48÷2x
The 2 belongs to the x, because that's how many x components there are. The 48 doesn't magically 'take' the 2 from the 2x term, making the expression simplify to:
24x
That's ridiculous, even if you only have limited knowledge of mathematics you can see this doesn't work.
Now, if we say that x=(9+3), we substitute x with (9+3) and arrive at the original expression of 48÷2(9+3)
If you then repeat the process with the original equation, once again, the 48 does not take the 2 from the (9+3) term
Hence the answer arrived at is that 48÷2(9+3)= 2
For the more graphically inclined people here is a simple way of sorting this out:
48
48÷2(9+3) = --------------------
2(9+3)
The terms are seperated by the division line so there is no confusion.
Hope some of you learnt something.