An operation is a form of calculation that takes one or more numbers and combines them in some way to form another number.

The most common operations are addition (+), subtraction (-), multiplication (\(\times\)) and division (\(\div\)), but there are many more. For example, the square root operation \(\sqrt{343}\) finds the number that is squared to give \(343\).

In the mathematical expression, \(3 \times 5 = 15\), the operation is multiplication (\(\times)\).