logic / Mathematics / Science And Math

George Boole and the Language of Logic, Part 2

Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else that thinks at least as logically as it does. ~Douglas Adams This is the second post in a multi-part series explaining how computers work. A computer is a thinking machine, a device which applies logic to any problem we ask it to. However, computers don’t know how to do this automatically. We have to teach them. And to teach them, we need a language of logic. Last time, we introduced one such language of logic, Boolean algebra. This time, we learn how to make composite statements in Boole’s system.

abstract algebra / logic / Mathematics / etc.

George Boole and the Language of Logic, Part 1

Logic takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it. ~Ludwig Wittgenstein Contrariwise, if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic. ~Lewis Carroll This is the first post in a multi-part series explaining how computers work. At its heart, a computer is a logical-thinking machine. It’s very good at starting with several assumptions and deducing a conclusion from those assumptions. Of course, a computer can’t do any of that on its own. We need to