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Article: Boolean Algebra
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Boolean Algebra
In 1847 George Boole (1815
–
1864), an English mathematician, published one of the works that founded symbolic logic. His combination of ideas from classical logic and algebra resulted in what is called Boolean algebra.
Using variables and symbols, Boole designed a language for describing and manipulating logical statements and determining if they are true or not. The variables stand for statements that are either true or false. The symbols +, * and
−
represent
and
,
or
, and
not
and are equivalent to the symbols [.logicaland], [.logicalor], and
−
used in the truth tables in logic. Although truth tables use T and F (for true and false respectively) to ...