Arithmetic operations

The basic operations under arithmetic are addition and subtraction, division and multiplication, although the subject involves many other modified operations.

Addition (+)

Addition is among the basic operations in arithmetic. In simple forms, addition combines two or more values into a single term, for example: 2 + 5 = 7, 6 + 2 = 8, where ‘+’ is the addition operator.

The procedure of adding more than two values is called summation and involves methods to add n number of values.

The identity element of addition is 0, which means that adding 0 to any value gives the same result. The inverse element of addition is the opposite of any value, which means that adding the opposite of any digit to the digit itself gives the additive identity. For instance, the opposite of 5 is -5, therefore 5 + (-5) = 0.

Examples of addition:

• 8 + 10 = 18
• 12 + 5 = 17

Subtraction (−)

Subtraction can be labelled as the inverse of addition. It computes the difference between two values, i.e., the minuend minus the subtrahend. The operator of subtraction is (-).

If the minuend is greater than the subtrahend, the difference is positive. If the minuend is less than the subtrahend, the result is negative, and 0 if the numbers are equal.

For example,

• 4  – 3 = 1
• 3 – 4 = -1

Multiplication (×)

Multiplication also combines two values like addition and subtraction, into a single value or product. The two original values are known as the multiplicand and the multiplier, or simply both as factors.

The product of a and b is expressed as a·b or a × b, where ‘×’ is the multiplication operator. In software languages wherein only characters are used that are found in keyboards, it is often expressed as, a*b (* is called asterisk).

For example,

• 4 × 5 = 20
• 2 × 3 = 6

Division (÷)

The division is the inverse of multiplication. The operator used for the division method is ‘÷’ or ‘/’ sometimes. It computes the quotient of two numbers, the dividend that is divided by the divisor.

The quotient is more than 1 if the dividend is greater than the divisor for any well-defined positive number else, it is smaller than 1.

For example,

• 10 ÷ 2 = 5
• 9 ÷ 3 = 3