(A + B·C)′ — De Morgan's laws

coretwo applications, outer then inner

Answer

A′ · (B′ + C′)

Why this example is worth doing

A nested case, where the law has to be applied twice: once at the top to split the OR, then again inside to handle the negated product. The result is Ā·(B̄ + C̄). The page's emphasis is on order — work outward in, never inside out — and on the bookkeeping trick of drawing the bar as a bracket so that its scope is unambiguous. Scope errors, not sign errors, are what actually break these problems once the expression is more than one level deep.

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

Truth table

Truth table — columns #, A, B, C, F
#ABCF
00001
10011
20101
30110
41000
51010
61100
71110

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)