Boolean Algebra NEW!
Boolean Algebra is used to analyze and simplify the digital (logic) circuits. It uses only the binary numbers i.e. 0 and 1. It is also called as Binary Algebra or logical Algebra. Boolean algebra was invented by George Boole in 1854.
Boolean Algebra
Boolean algebra was introduced by George Boole in his first book The Mathematical Analysis of Logic[1] (1847), and set forth more fully in his An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854).[2]According to Huntington, the term "Boolean algebra" was first suggested by Henry M. Sheffer in 1913,[3] although Charles Sanders Peirce gave the title "A Boolean Algebra with One Constant" to the first chapter of his "The Simplest Mathematics" in 1880.[4]Boolean algebra has been fundamental in the development of digital electronics, and is provided for in all modern programming languages. It is also used in set theory and statistics.[5]
Boole's algebra predated the modern developments in abstract algebra and mathematical logic; it is however seen as connected to the origins of both fields.[7] In an abstract setting, Boolean algebra was perfected in the late 19th century by Jevons, Schröder, Huntington and others, until it reached the modern conception of an (abstract) mathematical structure.[7] For example, the empirical observation that one can manipulate expressions in the algebra of sets, by translating them into expressions in Boole's algebra, is explained in modern terms by saying that the algebra of sets is a Boolean algebra (note the indefinite article). In fact, M. H. Stone proved in 1936 that every Boolean algebra is isomorphic to a field of sets.
In the 1930s, while studying switching circuits, Claude Shannon observed that one could also apply the rules of Boole's algebra in this setting,[8] and he introduced switching algebra as a way to analyze and design circuits by algebraic means in terms of logic gates. Shannon already had at his disposal the abstract mathematical apparatus, thus he cast his switching algebra as the two-element Boolean algebra. In modern circuit engineering settings, there is little need to consider other Boolean algebras, thus "switching algebra" and "Boolean algebra" are often used interchangeably.[9][10][11]
Logic sentences that can be expressed in classical propositional calculus have an equivalent expression in Boolean algebra. Thus, Boolean logic is sometimes used to denote propositional calculus performed in this way.[13][14][15] Boolean algebra is not sufficient to capture logic formulas using quantifiers, like those from first order logic.
Although the development of mathematical logic did not follow Boole's program, the connection between his algebra and logic was later put on firm ground in the setting of algebraic logic, which also studies the algebraic systems of many other logics.[7] The problem of determining whether the variables of a given Boolean (propositional) formula can be assigned in such a way as to make the formula evaluate to true is called the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT), and is of importance to theoretical computer science, being the first problem shown to be NP-complete. The closely related model of computation known as a Boolean circuit relates time complexity (of an algorithm) to circuit complexity.
Boolean algebra also deals with functions which have their values in the set 0, 1.A sequence of bits is a commonly used for such functions. Another common example is the subsets of a set E: to a subset F of E, one can define the indicator function that takes the value 1 on F, and 0 outside F. The most general example is the elements of a Boolean algebra, with all of the foregoing being instances thereof.
The basic operations of Boolean algebra are conjunction, disjunction, and negation. These Boolean operations are expressed with the corresponding binary operators AND, and OR and the unary operator NOT, collectively referred to as Boolean operators.[17]
Taking x = 2 in the third law above shows that it is not an ordinary algebra law, since 2 2 = 4. The remaining five laws can be falsified in ordinary algebra by taking all variables to be 1. For example, in Absorption Law 1, the left hand side would be 1(1 + 1) = 2, while the right hand side would be 1 (and so on).
The laws listed above define Boolean algebra, in the sense that they entail the rest of the subject. The laws Complementation 1 and 2, together with the monotone laws, suffice for this purpose and can therefore be taken as one possible complete set of laws or axiomatization of Boolean algebra. Every law of Boolean algebra follows logically from these axioms. Furthermore, Boolean algebras can then be defined as the models of these axioms as treated in Boolean algebras.
To clarify, writing down further laws of Boolean algebra cannot give rise to any new consequences of these axioms, nor can it rule out any model of them. In contrast, in a list of some but not all of the same laws, there could have been Boolean laws that did not follow from those on the list, and moreover there would have been models of the listed laws that were not Boolean algebras.
This axiomatization is by no means the only one, or even necessarily the most natural given that we did not pay attention to whether some of the axioms followed from others but simply chose to stop when we noticed we had enough laws, treated further in Axiomatizing Boolean algebra. Or the intermediate notion of axiom can be sidestepped altogether by defining a Boolean law directly as any tautology, understood as an equation that holds for all values of its variables over 0 and 1.[20][21] All these definitions of Boolean algebra can be shown to be equivalent.
There is nothing magical about the choice of symbols for the values of Boolean algebra. We could rename 0 and 1 to say α and β, and as long as we did so consistently throughout it would still be Boolean algebra, albeit with some obvious cosmetic differences.
Digital logic is the application of the Boolean algebra of 0 and 1 to electronic hardware consisting of logic gates connected to form a circuit diagram. Each gate implements a Boolean operation, and is depicted schematically by a shape indicating the operation. The shapes associated with the gates for conjunction (AND-gates), disjunction (OR-gates), and complement (inverters) are as follows.[23]
The term "algebra" denotes both a subject, namely the subject of algebra, and an object, namely an algebraic structure. Whereas the foregoing has addressed the subject of Boolean algebra, this section deals with mathematical objects called Boolean algebras, defined in full generality as any model of the Boolean laws. We begin with a special case of the notion definable without reference to the laws, namely concrete Boolean algebras, and then give the formal definition of the general notion.
A concrete Boolean algebra or field of sets is any nonempty set of subsets of a given set X closed under the set operations of union, intersection, and complement relative to X.[5]
Example 2. The empty set and X. This two-element algebra shows that a concrete Boolean algebra can be finite even when it consists of subsets of an infinite set. It can be seen that every field of subsets of X must contain the empty set and X. Hence no smaller example is possible, other than the degenerate algebra obtained by taking X to be empty so as to make the empty set and X coincide.
Example 4. For a less trivial example of the point made by Example 2, consider a Venn diagram formed by n closed curves partitioning the diagram into 2n regions, and let X be the (infinite) set of all points in the plane not on any curve but somewhere within the diagram. The interior of each region is thus an infinite subset of X, and every point in X is in exactly one region. Then the set of all 22n possible unions of regions (including the empty set obtained as the union of the empty set of regions and X obtained as the union of all 2n regions) is closed under union, intersection, and complement relative to X and therefore forms a concrete Boolean algebra. Again we have finitely many subsets of an infinite set forming a concrete Boolean algebra, with Example 2 arising as the case n = 0 of no curves.
The set 0,1 and its Boolean operations as treated above can be understood as the special case of bit vectors of length one, which by the identification of bit vectors with subsets can also be understood as the two subsets of a one-element set. We call this the prototypical Boolean algebra, justified by the following observation.
This observation is easily proved as follows. Certainly any law satisfied by all concrete Boolean algebras is satisfied by the prototypical one since it is concrete. Conversely any law that fails for some concrete Boolean algebra must have failed at a particular bit position, in which case that position by itself furnishes a one-bit counterexample to that law. Nondegeneracy ensures the existence of at least one bit position because there is only one empty bit vector.
The final goal of the next section can be understood as eliminating "concrete" from the above observation. We shall however reach that goal via the surprisingly stronger observation that, up to isomorphism, all Boolean algebras are concrete.
The Boolean algebras we have seen so far have all been concrete, consisting of bit vectors or equivalently of subsets of some set. Such a Boolean algebra consists of a set and operations on that set which can be shown to satisfy the laws of Boolean algebra.
Instead of showing that the Boolean laws are satisfied, we can instead postulate a set X, two binary operations on X, and one unary operation, and require that those operations satisfy the laws of Boolean algebra. The elements of X need not be bit vectors or subsets but can be anything at all. This leads to the more general abstract definition. 041b061a72