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De Morgan's laws represented with Venn diagrams.In each case, the resultant set is the set of all points in any shade of blue. In propositional logic and Boolean algebra, De Morgan's laws, [1] [2] [3] also known as De Morgan's theorem, [4] are a pair of transformation rules that are both valid rules of inference.
If the truth table for a NAND gate is examined or by applying De Morgan's laws, it can be seen that if any of the inputs are 0, then the output will be 1. To be an OR gate, however, the output must be 1 if any input is 1. Therefore, if the inputs are inverted, any high input will trigger a high output.
The term "Boolean algebra" honors George Boole (1815–1864), a self-educated English mathematician. He introduced the algebraic system initially in a small pamphlet, The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, published in 1847 in response to an ongoing public controversy between Augustus De Morgan and William Hamilton, and later as a more substantial book, The Laws of Thought, published in 1854.
To investigate the left distributivity of set subtraction over unions or intersections, consider how the sets involved in (both of) De Morgan's laws are all related: () = = () always holds (the equalities on the left and right are De Morgan's laws) but equality is not guaranteed in general (that is, the containment might be strict).
This finding makes each law, by definition, a tautology. And, for a given law, because its formula on the left and right are equivalent (or identical) they can be substituted for one another. Example: The following truth table is De Morgan's law for the behavior of NOT over OR: ~(a ∨ b) ≡ (~a & ~b).
(i.e. an involution that additionally satisfies De Morgan's laws) In a De Morgan algebra, the laws ¬x ∨ x = 1 (law of the excluded middle), and; ¬x ∧ x = 0 (law of noncontradiction) do not always hold. In the presence of the De Morgan laws, either law implies the other, and an algebra which satisfies them becomes a Boolean algebra.
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In classical logic, the ∧ and ∨ operators are dual in this sense, because (¬x ∧ ¬y) and ¬(x ∨ y) are equivalent. This means that for every theorem of classical logic there is an equivalent dual theorem. De Morgan's laws are examples. More generally, ∧ (¬ x i) = ¬ ∨ x i.