(Ā·B + A·B̄)′ — De Morgan's laws

edge casenegating a full SOP expression

Answer

(A + B′) · (A′ + B)

Why this example is worth doing

A complete sum of products under one bar, which is the shape that actually turns up when a student is asked for F′ having just minimised F. Two applications of the law give a product of sums, and expanding it recovers a sum of products for the complement. The page makes the strategic point alongside: if you want the complement, it is usually faster to re-minimise the OFF-set from the truth table than to push a bar through a finished expression, and it is much less error-prone.

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′)′(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
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)