Boolean algebra (introduction)

In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is the branch of algebra in which the values of the variables are the truth values true and false, usually denoted 1 and 0 respectively. Instead of elementary algebra where the values of the variables are numbers, and the prime operations are addition and multiplication, the main operations of Boolean algebra are the conjunction and denoted as ∧, the disjunction or denoted as ∨, and the negation not denoted as ¬. It is thus a formalism for describing logical relations in the same way that ordinary algebra describes numeric relations.

Boolean algebra was introduced by George Boole in his first book The Mathematical Analysis of Logic (1847), and set forth more fully in his An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854). According to Huntington, the term "Boolean algebra" was first suggested by Sheffer in 1913.

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.

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. 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. 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.

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