Definitions:

o A proposition that is always true is called a tautology.

o A proposition that is always false is called a contradiction.
o A proposition that is neither a tautology or a contracition is
a contingency.
Examples:
o pp is a tautology.
o pp is a contradiction.
o p(pq) is which?
o How do we know? So far: draw a truth table.

Logical Equivalences

Informally, what we mean by equivalent should be obvious: equivalent propositions are

the same.
o But we need to be a little more careful about definitions.

Propositions p and q are logically equivalent if pq is a tautology.

o We will write pq for an equivalence. (Some people also write pq.)

The only way we have so far to prove that two propositions are equivalent is a truth table.
o We used truth tables to show that and propositions are equivalent to others
written using only , , and .

o Wecan establish some more basic equivalences this way.

Important Equivalences

Informally, what we mean by equivalent should be obvious: equivalent propositions are

the same.
o But we need to be a little more careful about definitions.

Propositions p and q are logically equivalent if pq is a tautology.

o We will write pq for an equivalence. (Some people also write pq.)

The only way we have so far to prove that two propositions are equivalent is a truth table.
o We used truth tables to show that and propositions are equivalent to others
written using only , , and .
o We can establish some more basic equivalences this way.
o and use those to show things are equivalent in a nicer way.

Some equivalences important enough to have names: (If these are different than Table 6,
it's right.)
Name

Equivalences

Identity

pTppFp

Domination

pTTpFF

Idempotent

pppppp

Double Negation
Commutative

(p)p
pqqppqqp

Associative

(pq)rp(qr)(pq)rp(qr)

Distributive

p(qr)(pq)(pr)p(qr)(pq)(pr)

De Morgan's Law
Absorption

(pq)pq(pq)pq
p(pq)pp(pq)p

Negation

ppTppF

Pick a couple of those and prove them with a truth table.

See tables 7 and 8 in the text (page 25) for some equivalences with conditionals and
biconditionals.

Proving Equivalences

We can use these equivalences to finally do mathematical proofs.

That is, we can show that equivalences are correct, without drawing a truth table.

For example, we can show that (pq) is equivalent to pq like this:

(pq)(pq)(p)qpq.[a conditional equivalence

shown earlier][De Morgan's Law][double negation]

When we do logical proofs in this course, they should be in that form: exactly one know
equivalence applied in each line, with the reason noted.

Another example: that q(pq) is a contradiction:

q(pq)q(pq)q(pq)q(qp)(qq)p
FpF.[conditional equivalence][De Morgan's][commutative]
[associative][negation][domination]

Aren't truth tables easier?

o For equivalences with only two propositions, probably. Maybe for three.
o For more complex equivalences, you have abandon truth tables and start thinking.

Tautology (logic)
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In logic, a tautology (from the Greek word ) is a formula that is true in every
possible interpretation.
Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein first applied the term to redundancies of propositional logic in 1921.
(It had been used earlier to refer to rhetorical tautologies, and continues to be used in that alternative
sense.) A formula is satisfiable if it is true under at least one interpretation, and thus a tautology is a
formula whose negation is unsatisfiable. Unsatisfiable statements, both through negation and
affirmation, are known formally as contradictions. A formula that is neither a tautology nor a
contradiction is said to belogically contingent. Such a formula can be made either true or false based
on the values assigned to its propositional variables. The double turnstile notation is used to
indicate that S is a tautology. Tautology is sometimes symbolized by "Vpq", and contradiction by
"Opq". The tee symbol is sometimes used to denote an arbitrary tautology, with the dual
symbol (falsum) representing an arbitrary contradiction; in any symbolism, a tautology may be
substituted for the truth value "true," as symbolized, for instance, by "1."
Tautologies are a key concept in propositional logic, where a tautology is defined as a propositional
formula that is true under any possible Boolean valuation of its propositional variables. A key
property of tautologies in propositional logic is that an effective method exists for testing whether a
given formula is always satisfied (or, equivalently, whether its negation is unsatisfiable).
The definition of tautology can be extended to sentences in predicate logic, which may
contain quantifiers, unlike sentences of propositional logic. In propositional logic, there is no
distinction between a tautology and a logically valid formula. In the context of predicate logic, many
authors define a tautology to be a sentence that can be obtained by taking a tautology of
propositional logic and uniformly replacing each propositional variable by a first-order formula (one
formula per propositional variable). The set of such formulas is aproper subset of the set of logically
valid sentences of predicate logic (which are the sentences that are true in every model).
Contents

1History

2Background

3Definition and examples

4Verifying tautologies

5Tautological implication

6Substitution

7Efficient verification and the Boolean satisfiability problem

8Tautologies versus validities in first-order logic

9See also
o

9.1Normal forms

9.2Related logical topics

10References

11External links

History[edit]
The word tautology was used by the ancient Greeks to describe a statement that was true merely by
virtue of saying the same thing twice, a pejorative meaning that is still used for rhetorical tautologies.
Between 1800 and 1940, the word gained new meaning in logic, and is currently used
in mathematical logic to denote a certain type of propositional formula, without the pejorative
connotations it originally possessed.
In 1800, Immanuel Kant wrote in his book Logic:
"The identity of concepts in analytical judgments can be either explicit (explicita) or nonexplicit (implicita). In the former case analytic propositions are tautological."
Here analytic proposition refers to an analytic truth, a statement in natural language that is true
solely because of the terms involved.
In 1884, Gottlob Frege proposed in his Grundlagen that a truth is analytic exactly if it can be
derived using logic. But he maintained a distinction between analytic truths (those true based
only on the meanings of their terms) and tautologies (statements devoid of content).
In 1921, in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein proposed that statements
that can be deduced by logical deduction are tautological (empty of meaning) as well as being
analytic truths. Henri Poincar had made similar remarks in Science and Hypothesis in 1905.
Although Bertrand Russell at first argued against these remarks by Wittgenstein and Poincar,
claiming that mathematical truths were not only non-tautologous but were synthetic, he later
spoke in favor of them in 1918:

"Everything that is a proposition of logic has got to be in some sense or the other like a
tautology. It has got to be something that has some peculiar quality, which I do not know how
to define, that belongs to logical propositions but not to others."
Here logical proposition refers to a proposition that is provable using the laws of logic.
During the 1930s, the formalization of the semantics of propositional logic in terms of truth
assignments was developed. The term tautology began to be applied to those propositional
formulas that are true regardless of the truth or falsity of their propositional variables. Some
early books on logic (such as Symbolic Logic by C. I. Lewis and Langford, 1932) used the
term for any proposition (in any formal logic) that is universally valid. It is common in
presentations after this (such as Stephen Kleene 1967 and Herbert Enderton 2002) to
use tautology to refer to a logically valid propositional formula, but to maintain a distinction
between tautology and logically valid in the context of first-order logic (see below).

Background[edit]
Main article: propositional logic
Propositional logic begins with propositional variables, atomic units that represent
concrete propositions. A formula consists of propositional variables connected by logical
connectives, built up in such a way that the truth of the overall formula can be deduced from
the truth or falsity of each variable. A valuation is a function that assigns each propositional
variable either T (for truth) or F (for falsity). So, for example, using the propositional
variables A and B, the binary
connectives and representing disjunction andconjunction respectively, and the unary
connective representing negation, the following formula can be obtained::. A valuation here
must assign to each of A and B either T or F. But no matter how this assignment is made,
the overall formula will come out true. For if the first conjunction is not satisfied by a
particular valuation, then one of A and B is assigned F, which will cause the corresponding
later disjunct to be T.

Definition and examples[edit]

A formula of propositional logic is a tautology if the formula itself is always true regardless
of which valuation is used for the propositional variables.
There are infinitely many tautologies. Examples include:

("A or not A"), the law of the excluded middle. This formula has only one propositional
variable, A. Any valuation for this formula must, by definition, assign A one of the truth
values true or false, and assign A the other truth value.

("if A implies B, then not-B implies not-A", and vice versa), which expresses the law
of contraposition.

("if not-A implies both B and its negation not-B, then not-A must be false, then A must
be true"), which is the principle known as reductio ad absurdum.

("if not both A and B, then not-A or not-B", and vice versa), which is known as De
Morgan's law.

("if A implies B and B implies C, then A implies C"), which is the principle known
as syllogism.

("if at least one of A or B is true, and each implies C, then C must be true as well"),
which is the principle known as proof by cases.

A minimal tautology is a tautology that is not the instance of a shorter tautology.

is a tautology, but not a minimal one, because it is an instantiation of .

Verifying tautologies[edit]
The problem of determining whether a formula is a tautology is fundamental in propositional
logic. If there are n variables occurring in a formula then there are 2n distinct valuations for
the formula. Therefore, the task of determining whether or not the formula is a tautology is a
finite, mechanical one: one need only evaluate the truth value of the formula under each of
its possible valuations. One algorithmic method for verifying that every valuation causes this
sentence to be true is to make a truth table that includes every possible valuation.
For example, consider the formula
There are 8 possible valuations for the propositional variables A, B, C, represented by
the first three columns of the following table. The remaining columns show the truth of
subformulas of the formula above, culminating in a column showing the truth value of
the original formula under each valuation.

Because each row of the final column shows T, the sentence in question is verified to be
a tautology.
It is also possible to define a deductive system (proof system) for propositional logic, as
a simpler variant of the deductive systems employed for first-order logic (see Kleene
1967, Sec 1.9 for one such system). A proof of a tautology in an appropriate deduction
system may be much shorter than a complete truth table (a formula with n propositional
variables requires a truth table with 2n lines, which quickly becomes infeasible
as n increases). Proof systems are also required for the study of intuitionistic
propositional logic, in which the method of truth tables cannot be employed because the
law of the excluded middle is not assumed.

Tautological implication[edit]
Main article: Tautological consequence
A formula R is said to tautologically imply a formula S if every valuation that
causes R to be true also causes S to be true. This situation is denoted . It is equivalent
to the formula being a tautology (Kleene 1967 p. 27).
For example, let S be . Then S is not a tautology, because any valuation that
makes A false will make S false. But any valuation that makes A true will make Strue,
because is a tautology. Let R be the formula . Then , because any valuation
satisfying R makes A true and thus makes S true.
It follows from the definition that if a formula R is a contradiction then R tautologically
implies every formula, because there is no truth valuation that causes R to be true and
so the definition of tautological implication is trivially satisfied. Similarly, if S is a
tautology then S is tautologically implied by every formula.

Substitution[edit]
Main article: Substitution instance

There is a general procedure, the substitution rule, that allows additional tautologies to
be constructed from a given tautology (Kleene 1967 sec. 3). Suppose that S is a
tautology and for each propositional variable A in S a fixed sentence SA is chosen. Then
the sentence obtained by replacing each variable A in S with the corresponding
sentenceSA is also a tautology.
For example, let S be , a tautology. Let SA be and let SB be . It follows from the
substitution rule that the sentence
is a tautology. In turn, a tautology may be substituted for the truth value "true": for instance,
when "true" is symbolized by "1", a tautology may be substituted for "1".

Efficient verification and the Boolean

satisfiability problem[edit]
The problem of constructing practical algorithms to determine whether sentences
with large numbers of propositional variables are tautologies is an area of
contemporary research in the area of automated theorem proving.
The method of truth tables illustrated above is provably correct the truth table for a
tautology will end in a column with only T, while the truth table for a sentence that is
not a tautology will contain a row whose final column is F, and the valuation
corresponding to that row is a valuation that does not satisfy the sentence being
tested. This method for verifying tautologies is an effective procedure, which means
that given unlimited computational resources it can always be used to
mechanistically determine whether a sentence is a tautology. This means, in
particular, the set of tautologies over a fixed finite or countable alphabet is
a decidable set.
As an efficient procedure, however, truth tables are constrained by the fact that the
number of valuations that must be checked increases as 2k, where k is the number
of variables in the formula. This exponential growth in the computation length
renders the truth table method useless for formulas with thousands of propositional
variables, as contemporary computing hardware cannot execute the algorithm in a
feasible time period.
The problem of determining whether there is any valuation that makes a formula
true is the Boolean satisfiability problem; the problem of checking tautologies is
equivalent to this problem, because verifying that a sentence S is a tautology is
equivalent to verifying that there is no valuation satisfying . It is known that the
Boolean satisfiability problem is NP complete, and widely believed that there is
no polynomial-time algorithm that can perform it. Current research focuses on
finding algorithms that perform well on special classes of formulas, or terminate
quickly on average even though some inputs may cause them to take much longer.

Tautologies versus validities in first-order

logic[edit]
The fundamental definition of a tautology is in the context of propositional logic. The
definition can be extended, however, to sentences in first-order logic (see Enderton
(2002, p. 114) and Kleene (1967 secs. 1718)). These sentences may contain
quantifiers, unlike sentences of propositional logic. In the context of first-order logic,
a distinction is maintained between logical validities, sentences that are true in
every model, and tautologies, which are a proper subset of the first-order logical
validities. In the context of propositional logic, these two terms coincide.
A tautology in first-order logic is a sentence that can be obtained by taking a
tautology of propositional logic and uniformly replacing each propositional variable
by a first-order formula (one formula per propositional variable). For example,
because is a tautology of propositional logic, is a tautology in first order logic.
Similarly, in a first-order language with a unary relation symbols R,S,T, the following
sentence is a tautology:
It is obtained by replacing with , with , and with in the propositional tautology .
Not all logical validities are tautologies in first-order logic. For example, the
sentence
is true in any first-order interpretation, but it corresponds to the propositional
sentence which is not a tautology of propositional logic.

Tautology
A tautology is a logical statement in which the conclusion is equivalent to the premise. More colloquially, it is formula
in propositional calculus which is always true (Simpson 1992, p. 2015; D'Angelo and West 2000, p. 33; Bronshtein
and Semendyayev 2004, p. 288).
If is a tautology, it is written
. A sentence whose truth table contains only 'T' is called a tautology. The
following sentences are examples of tautologies:
(1)
(2)
(3)

Properties of Logical Operators

The logical operators which we introduced in the last section have a number of
properties which should be familiar to you from your study of algebra. In this section,
we will discuss those properties and present truth tables for many of them as a way of
familiarizing ourselves with the use of truth tables to analyze logical expressions.

Identities

The identities help to give us a feel for how the logical operators
behave in simple situations. The first identity:
p&T=p
is formally analogous to the algebraic identity
x*1=x
The analogy is made clear by the following substitutions
p is substituted for x
& is substituted for *
T is substituted for 1
We will call such an analogy an "isomorphism", a word whose
meaning derives from Greek words which mean same ("iso") shape
("morph"). Many of our logical properties are isomorphic to algebraic
properties.
To analyze a logical expression, we construct a truth table with additional columns for
each sub-expression:
p

p&T

Here we added columns for the sub-expressions T and p & T; when p

has the value T, p & T is T and when p has the value F, p & T is F.
Therefore p & T has the same values as p in all cases (the first and
last columns are identical): anything ANDed with T remains
unchanged.
A similar identity, which has no algebraic analog, is sometimes called a
"boundedness" identity:
p|T=T
Its truth table is
p

p|T

We see, then, that anything ORed with T is T.

Our next identity:
p|F=p
is isomorphic to the algebraic identity
x+0=x
with the new substitutions
| is substituted for +
F is substituted for 0
Its truth table
p

p|F

shows that anything ORed with F is unchanged.

Our last identity (the other boundedness identity):
p&F=F

is isomorphic to the algebraic identity

x*0=0
and has the truth table
p

p&F

It illustrates that anything ANDed with F is F. This and the first

identity combine to explain the concept of masking.

Commutativity

You are familiar with the commutative properties of addition and

multiplication:
x+y=y+x
x*y=y*x
which mean simply that the results of these operations do not
depend on the ordering of the operands. From our analogies
between addition and ORing, and between multiplication and
ANDing, we expect that these logical operations should commute as
well:
p|q=q|p
p&q=q&p
We first construct a truth table illustrating the commutative property
of AND by identifying the sub-expressions p & q and q & p:
p q

p&q

q&p

T T

p & q is only T when both p and q are T (and likewise for q & p); the
equality of the last two columns of the truth table verify that AND
indeed commutes.
In a similar fashion, we see that OR commutes as well:
p

p|q

q|p

p | q (as well as q | p) is T unless both p and q are F, as the last two

columns indicate.

Associativity

Since addition and multiplication are both associative:

x+(y+z)=(x+y)+z
x*(y*z)=(x*y)*z
we might expect that AND and OR are associative as well:
p&(q&r)=(p&q)&r
p|(q|r)=(p|q)|r
Since three variables are involved, our truth table must contain
eight rows. We begin by investigating the associativity of AND,
identifying the sub-expressions
q&r
and
p&q
at the lowest level (inside the parentheses and arbitrarily working
from left to right). We then include columns in our truth table for the
higher level sub-expressions on either side of the equal sign:

p q r q&r p&q

p&(q&r)

(p&q)&r

T T T

T T F

T F T

T F F

F T T

F T F

F F T

F F F

We proceed as follows:
1. The q & r column is filled in one row at a time using AND on the
contents of the q and r columns.
2. The p & q column is filled in one row at a time using AND on
the contents of the p and q columns.
3. The p & ( q & r ) column is filled in one row at a time using AND
on the contents of the p and the q & r columns.
4. The (p & q) & r column is filled in one row at a time using AND
on the contents of the p & q and the r columns.
5. Finally, the last two columns are compared and found equal:
therefore AND is associative.
We verify the associativity of OR in exactly the same way:
p q r

q|r

p|q

p|(q|r)

(p|q)|r

T T T

T T F

T F T

T F F

F T T

F T F

F F T

F F F

Of some practical use, and not quite as self-evident, is the

associativity of the XOR operator:
p q r qXr pXq

pX(qXr)

(pXq)Xr

T T T

T T F

T F T

T F F

F T T

F T F

F F T

F F F

As is obvious from their truth tables, AND, OR, XOR and

EQUIVALENCE are all commutative. While we have not shown it
explicitly for EQUIVALENCE, it too is associative. So we can make a
very useful general statement:
All of our commutative operators are also associative.

Distribution

Algebraically, we say that multiplication distributes over addition:

x*(y+z)=x*y+x*z
Similarly, we expect that AND distributes over OR:
p&(q|r)=(p&q)|(p&r)
Since we have three logical variables we must again have eight rows
in our truth table. As always, the first three columns correspond to
the logical variables p, q and r. The next three columns are for the
lowest level sub-expressions
q|r

 p&q
p&r
and the last two columns are for the highest level sub-expressions
on either side of the equal sign:
p q r q|r p&q p&r

p&(q|r)

(p&q)|(p&r)

T T T

T T F

T F T

T F F

F T T

F T F

F F T

F F F

We proceed in exactly the same fashion as we did with associativity:

1. The first three columns contain all possible values for the
variables p, q and r.
2. The q | r column contains the results of ORing the q and r
columns.
3. The p & q column contains the results of ANDing the p and q
columns.
4. The p & r column contains the results of ANDing the p and r
columns.
5. The p & (q | r) column contains the results of ANDing the p
column with the q | r column.
6. The (p & q) | (p & r) column contains the results of ORing the p
& q column with the p & r column.
7. Associativity is verified by examining the last two columns and
finding them equal.

It is interesting to note that OR distributes over AND even though

addition does not distribute over multiplication:
p|(q&r)=(p|q)&(p|r)
The truth table verifying this fact is constructed in exactly the same
fashion as the previous truth table; by this time, you should be able
to understand the construction of this truth table on your own:
p q r q&r

p|q

p|r

p|(q&r)

(p|q)&(p|r)

T T T

T T F

T F T

T F F

F T T

F T F

F F T

F F F

Complements

The following logical properties illustrate some of the more obvious

characteristics of the logical constants and operators:
~T=F
~F=T
The latter is analogous to the algebraic relationship
- ( -1 ) = 1
where logical negation is substituted for arithmetic negation.
The next property can be expressed verbally as "either p is true or p is false":
p | ~p = T
p

~p

p | ~p

That is, p + ~p is a tautology.

The final complement property can be expressed verbally as "p cannot be both true
and false":
p & ~p = F
p ~p

p & ~p

In other words, p & ~p is a contradiction.

Uniqueness of the Complement

The following property illustrates the uniqueness of the complement

operator (NOT):
p|q=T
and
p&q=F
implies
q = ~p
We will not present a truth table to illustrate this property, because
the first two expressions have the form of constraints (which are not
what truth tables are designed for), but you can easily convince
yourself that the property is valid:
1. If p | q = T, then either p or q must be T.
2. If p & q = F, then either p or q must be F.
3. Thus if p is T, q must be F and if q is T, p must be F.
4. Therefore p = ~q.
This property is an example of an argument.

Involution

The involution property

~ ~p = p
is clearly isomorphic to
- ( -x ) = x
and has the following truth table:
p

~p

~ ~p

Reflexivity

An operator "O" is reflexive if

pOp
for any p. For example,
pp
just as
x=x

Symmetry

An operator "O" is symmetric if

pOq
is the same as
qOp
for any p and q. Symmetry is essentially the same as commutivity,
but is more often applied to operators which express equivalence
relationships:

(pq)=(qp)
(which is analogous to)
(x=y)=(y=x)
The following truth table shows that the EQUIVALENCE relationship
is symmetric:
p q

pq

qp

T T

T F

F T

F F

(since the last two columns are identical).

Transitivity

An operator "O" is transitive if

pOq
and
qOr
imply that
p O r.
For instance, the equivalence relationship is transitive:
(( p q ) & ( q r )) ( p r )
just as numerical equality is:
(( x = y ) and ( y = z )) ( x = z )
To show this, we construct a truth table along the same lines as
before:
pqr p q q r p r
TTT

(pq)&(q
r)

(( p q ) & ( q r )) ( p
r)

TTF

TFT

TFF

F TT

FTF

FFT

FFF

Here, the lowest level sub-expressions are

pq
qr
pr
The next highest level sub-expression is
(pq)&(qr)
The final column represents the transitivity of the EQUIVALENCE
operator and is the result of the IMPLIES operator acting on the
previous column and the p r column. Since all of the entries in the
last column are T, the relationship is a tautology: it is always true.
This is a good place to note the following patterns:
The p q sub-expression does not depend on r; therefore the
first two rows should be the same, the second two rows should
be the same, the third two rows should be the same, and the
last two rows should be the same.
The q r sub-expression does not depend on p, so the first
four rows should be the same as the last four.
The p r sub-expression does not depend on q, so the first two
rows should be the same as the second two rows, and the third
set of two rows should be the same as the last two rows.

These patterns can help you find mistakes in a complicated truth table.
You should prove to yourself that IMPLIES is not symmetric, but it is
reflexive and transitive.

Idempotence

The idea of idempotence of an operator "O" is essentially the

following:
pOp=p
for any p. Both AND and OR are idempotent:
p&p=p
p

p&p

p|p=p
p

p|p

Absorption

The absorption properties are

p | (p & q) = p
p q p&q

p | (p & q)

T T

T F

F T

F F

and

p & (p | q) = p
p q p|q

p & (p | q)

T T

T F

F T

F F

The idea here is that in both expressions, q is "absorbed" into p.

Biconditional

We list the biconditional as a property, although it more properly is

an expression of EQUIVALENCE in terms of IMPLIES:
(( p q ) & ( q p )) = ( p q )
p q pq qp

pq

(pq)&(qp)

T T

T F

F T

F F

The equality of the last two columns shows that EQUIVALENCE is a

sort of two-way implication; hence the term biconditional. The
biconditional is often expressed as "if and only if" (abbreviated as
"iff").

DeMorgan's Laws

Our final properties are called "DeMorgan's Laws" and describe how
AND and OR can be related (if you have enough NOTs!):
~ ( p | q ) = ~p & ~q
which we will abbreviate as "DeMorgan's 1" or "DeM1", and which
has the following truth table:
p q

p|q

~p ~q

~(p|q)

~p & ~q

T T

T F

F T

F F

and "DeMorgan's 2" or "DeM2":

~ ( p & q ) = ~p | ~q
p q

p&q

~p ~q

~(p&q)

~p | ~q

T T

T F

F T

F F

We can use DeMorgan's Laws in the simplification of logical

expressions. For instance,
~ ( p & ( q | ~ r ))
using DeM2 (where the sub-expression q | ~r takes the place of q in
the law) becomes
~p|~(q|~r)
We then use DeM1 (where the sub-expression ~r takes the place of
p in the law) and the involution property to transform this into
~p|(~q&r)
Finally, we use the second distributive property (with ~p and ~q
instead of p and q in the original statement of the property) to
obtain
(~p|~q)&(~p|r)
There are other properties, similar to DeMorgan's Laws in that they
relate various expressions. We will state them here, and leave the
proofs to the reader:
pq

is equivalent to ~q ~p

pq

is equivalent to ~p | q

(p & q) r is equivalent to p (q r)
pq

is equivalent to (p & q) | (~p & ~q)

The first is called transposition, and the third is called exportation.

There are also two implications which might at first sight seem
incorrect, but their truth tables prove otherwise:
(p & q) p
p (p | q)

Summary

Now that we have analyzed the logical properties we see that in general, the algorithm
for completing an arbitrary truth table is:
1. Determine the number of variables in the logical expression;
for n variables, you will need a truth table with 2n rows.
2. The first n columns (one for each variable) are then completed
using the templates in the previous section; they represent all
possible values of the variables.
3. The lowest level sub-expressions (those deepest inside nested
parentheses) are identified and columns are added to the truth
table for each of them.
4. The contents of these columns are filled in using the basic
logical operations on the variables involved, one row at a time.
5. Columns are added for higher level sub-expressions until the
entire logical expression isACCOUNTED for.
6. The contents of those columns are filled in using the basic
logical operations on the contents of the appropriate previous
columns.

7. To determine the equality of logical expressions, the

corresponding columns are compared to see if they are the
equal.
Now that we are comfortable using truth tables to analyze logical expressions, we will
see in the next section how to determine the validity of an argument.