Binary Operation

An operation that needs two inputs.

A simple example is the addition operation "+":

Example: in 8 + 3 = 11 the operation is "+", which takes two values (8 and 3) and gives the result 11

Subtraction, multiplication and division are also binary operations, and there are many more.

The two inputs are called "operands".

Also, a binary operation normally takes and returns things of the same type. In other words, the operands and the result usually belong to the same set.

Note: an operation that has only one input is called a "unary operation".

Example: the square root function is a unary operation: √16 = 4 has just one input "16" to produce an output of 4