For instance, if you have say:

```
4 + x = 10

```

We instantly calculate 10 - 4 to derive x, which is 6. So you could say there is only 1 operation, subtraction, where 4 is subtracted from 10. As simple as this seems however, you can't just 'magically' subtract 4 from 10, you have to do so step by step, i.e in increments of 1.

Is there a way to denote this? Something I had in mind was:

```
10 - 1 ... -4 = x

```

Or more generally, where a and b are known constants, and x is the unknown:

```
a + b = x
x - 1 ... -a = b
x - 1 ... -b = a

```

Where -1 ... -a means that you subtract 1 until you reach a, so all in all you subtract a total of a.