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Re: Can't Simplify logical expression

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg90815] Re: [mg90790] Can't Simplify logical expression
• From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl>
• Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:14:32 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <200807240853.EAA18974@smc.vnet.net> <F47D80C9-52F3-40F8-875C-C95E1E0E9743@mimuw.edu.pl>

On 24 Jul 2008, at 13:12, Andrzej Kozlowski wrote:

>
> On 24 Jul 2008, at 10:53, realyigo at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Simplify[(a && (! b)) || (b && (! a))]
>>
>> I get this:
>> a && ! b || b && ! a
>>
>> But I want this:
>> Xor[a,b]
>>
>>
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>
>
> What you are asking for is "the inverse" of:
>
> LogicalExpand[Xor[a, b]]
> (a &&  ! b) || (b &&  ! a)
>
> but Mathematica has no built in functions for doing this. It is  
> possible to implement a function that would do this by using the  
> equivalence between Boolean algebras and Boolean rings and the  
> Groebner Basis algorithm modulo 2, as I described a 2006 post on  
> this forum:
>
> http://forums.wolfram.com/mathgroup/archive/2006/Sep/msg00266.html
>
> The idea is to work in a ring (with 1) with two generators a and b,  
> and relations 2a = 0, 2 b = 0, a^2=a,b^2=b. The element a of the  
> ring corresponds to the logical statment a, the element b to the  
> logical statement b, the element 1-a to !a, 1-b to !b. The product *  
> corresponds to And and the sum + to Xor.  Logical Or[a,b]  
> corresponds to a*b+a+b hence your statement (a &&  ! b) || (b &&  !  
> a) corresponds to:
>
> a*(1 - b) + (1 - a)*a*b*(1 - b) + (1 - a)*b
>
> Now we can use GroebnerBasis and PolynomialReduce to simplify this,  
> using the relations ^2=a,b^2=b:
>
> Last[PolynomialReduce[p, {a^2 - a, b^2 - b}, {a, b}, Modulus -> 2]]
> a + b

where, of course,

p = a*(1 - b) + (1 - a)*a*b*(1 - b) + (1 - a)*b

Andrzej Kozlowski

>
>
> This corresponds to Xor[a,b], so we got what we wanted.
>
> It should not be too not too hard to write a package to do all this  
> automatically.
>
> Andrzej Kozlowski
>
>

• References:
  • Can't Simplify logical expression
    • From: realyigo@gmail.com