(A + B)′ — De Morgan's laws

introNOR expands to a product

Answer

A′ · B′

Why this example is worth doing

The dual half, and the more frequently mangled one. (A + B)′ is Ā·B̄ and not Ā + B̄, and the page shows the disagreement row by row: the wrong answer is right only when A and B are both 0. Presenting the error explicitly rather than only the correct result is deliberate — students recognise their own mistake faster than they absorb a rule. The NOR gate page reuses this expansion to justify the inverted-input AND symbol.

Try your own input in the De Morgan’s laws. Push a negation through any expression and see both forms side by side.

How the answer is reached

Negation pushed inwards

(A + B)′A′ · B′De Morgan swaps the operator as the bar passes through it.

Truth table

Truth table — columns #, A, B, F
#ABF
0001
1010
2100
3110

Compare with

Open this example in the De Morgan’s laws

The field arrives filled in with this example’s input.

Note:

Notation this page assumes

  • Symbols: · is AND, + is OR, ⊕ is XOR, a prime or an overline is NOT. The field also takes ∧ ∨ ¬ ~ ! & | and the words.
  • Operator precedence, tightest first: NOT, then AND (including juxtaposition), then XOR/XNOR, then NAND/NOR, then OR, then IMPLIES, then IFF.
  • In a minterm index the first variable is the most significant bit, so over [A, B, C] minterm 5 is A·B̄·C.

Sources

  • De Morgan, Formal Logic (1847)
  • Boole, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854)