(Ā + B̄)′ — De Morgan's laws

exam standardDe Morgan then involution

Answer

A · B

Why this example is worth doing

Applying the law to an expression whose operands are already complemented, which produces a double negation on each and then cancels it: the answer is A·B. This is the reverse direction, turning a sum of complements back into a product, and it is the step that recovers an AND gate from a NOR-based implementation. The page pairs it with the bubble-pushing diagram in which two inversions meet on a wire and vanish, making the algebraic cancellation and the graphical one the same event.

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 · BDe Morgan swaps the operator as the bar passes through it.

Truth table

Truth table — columns #, A, B, F
#ABF
0000
1010
2100
3111

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)