General Definition
An operation ω is a function of the form ω : V → Y, where V ⊂ X1 × … × Xk. The sets Xk are called the domains of the operation, the set Y is called the codomain of the operation, and the fixed non-negative integer k (the number of arguments) is called the type or arity of the operation. Thus a unary operation has arity one, and a binary operation has arity two. An operation of arity zero, called a nullary operation, is simply an element of the codomain Y. An operation of arity k is called a k-ary operation. Thus a k-ary operation is a (k+1)-ary relation that is functional on its first k domains.
The above describes what is usually called a finitary operation, referring to the finite number of arguments (the value k). There are obvious extensions where the arity is taken to be an infinite ordinal or cardinal, or even an arbitrary set indexing the arguments.
Often, use of the term operation implies that the domain of the function is a power of the codomain (i.e. the Cartesian product of one or more copies of the codomain), although this is by no means universal, as in the example of multiplying a vector by a scalar.
Read more about this topic: Operation (mathematics)
Famous quotes containing the words general and/or definition:
“A writer who writes, “I am alone” ... can be considered rather comical. It is comical for a man to recognize his solitude by addressing a reader and by using methods that prevent the individual from being alone. The word alone is just as general as the word bread. To pronounce it is to summon to oneself the presence of everything the word excludes.”
—Maurice Blanchot (b. 1907)
“Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative; and the definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstractness. To define beauty not in the most abstract, but in the most concrete terms possible, not to find a universal formula for it, but the formula which expresses most adequately this or that special manifestation of it, is the aim of the true student of aesthetics.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)