table evaluating *( + item read expression parsed so far comments * *( *( *( + can' evaluate + yet *( + when you see the ')you can evaluate + * when you've evaluated + you can evaluate * can' evaluate * because of parentheses end nothing left to evaluate here we can' evaluate anything until we've reached the closing parenthesis multiplication has higher or equal precedence compared to the other operatorsso ordinarily we could carry out * as soon as we see the howeverparentheses have