the door is 27 inches wide, and the distance from each end of the towel bar to the end of the door is 9 inches, so the towel bar would take up all of the door except the 2·9 inches, so the equation is 27-(2·9)=9 in
The distributive property tells us how to solve expressions in the form of a(b + c). The distributive property is sometimes called the distributive law of multiplication and division.