Definition
A Boolean algebra is a six-tuple consisting of a set A, equipped with two binary operations ∧ (called "meet" or "and"), ∨ (called "join" or "or"), a unary operation ¬ (called "complement" or "not") and two elements 0 and 1 (sometimes denoted by the symbols ⊥ and ⊤, respectively), such that for all elements a, b and c of A, the following axioms hold:
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a ∨ (b ∨ c) = (a ∨ b) ∨ c a ∧ (b ∧ c) = (a ∧ b) ∧ c associativity a ∨ b = b ∨ a a ∧ b = b ∧ a commutativity a ∨ 0 = a a ∧ 1 = a identity a ∨ (b ∧ c) = (a ∨ b) ∧ (a ∨ c) a ∧ (b ∨ c) = (a ∧ b) ∨ (a ∧ c) distributivity a ∨ ¬a = 1 a ∧ ¬a = 0 complements
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A Boolean algebra with only one element is called a trivial Boolean algebra or a degenerate Boolean algebra. (Some authors require 0 and 1 to be distinct elements in order to exclude this case.)
It follows from the last three pairs of axioms above (identity, distributivity and complements) that
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- a = b ∧ a if and only if a ∨ b = b.
The relation ≤ defined by a ≤ b if and only if the above equivalent conditions hold, is a partial order with least element 0 and greatest element 1. The meet a ∧ b and the join a ∨ b of two elements coincide with their infimum and supremum, respectively, with respect to ≤.
As in every bounded lattice, the relations ∧ and ∨ satisfy the first three pairs of axioms above; the fourth pair is just distributivity. Since the complements in a distributive lattice are unique, to define the involution ¬ it suffices to define ¬a as the complement of a.
The set of axioms is self-dual in the sense that if one exchanges ∨ with ∧ and 0 with 1 in an axiom, the result is again an axiom. Therefore by applying this operation to a Boolean algebra (or Boolean lattice), one obtains another Boolean algebra with the same elements; it is called its dual.
Read more about this topic: Boolean Algebra (structure)
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