Elements are articles that are not composed or are regarded as such. In the decimal system, digits from 0 to 9 are elements and can create compositions 3452, 65, 4476 and so on. Now, the linkage between numbers could be math operators, such as '+'. You usually link things for a purpose, so the purpose of using '+' to link 123 with 78, for example, is to create another number. But sometimes the linkage takes on various forms, such as
41 + x = 89.
You need to reason out the value of 'x'. What kind of reasoning is required to figure it out when 41 and 89 are the composed terms and '+', 'x', and '=' are the elements, or the non-composed terms, coz '+x=' is a nonsensical composition w.r.t. to math? In other words, would you use composed or non-composed reasoning to figure out the value of 'x'?