A → B — truth table

introonly row A=1, B=0 is false

Answer

4 rows, 3 true (0, 1, 3)

Why this example is worth doing

Material implication, and the row that every student queries: A = 0, B = 1 evaluates to true. The page explains that A → B claims nothing at all when A is false, so a false antecedent cannot make the implication false — it is a promise that has not been broken rather than one that has been kept. It also gives the equivalence A → B = Ā + B, which converts the whole discipline of propositional logic into ordinary Boolean algebra and lets every other tool on the site accept implications.

Try your own input in the Truth table generator. Turn an expression into a full truth table, with a column for every sub-expression.

How the answer is reached

Truth table

Truth table — columns #, A, B, A → B
#ABA → B
0001
1011
2100
3111

Compare with

Open this example in the Truth table generator

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

  • Boole, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854)
  • Shannon, “A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits” (1938)