Appetizers and Lessons for Mathematics and Reason (www.whyslopes.com)
||Définition d'une variable || Algèbre || Arithmetique || Logique ||La raison basée sur les règles et modelés||

Online Volumes
1,  Elements of Reason.
1A. Pattern Based Reason 
1B. Math Curriculum Notes
2. Three Skills for Algebra
3. Why Slopes & More Math

 (Optional Book Orders)
More Site Areas 
1. Help Your Child or Teen Learn 
2. Solving Linear Equations
3. Fractions Ratios Rates Proportions & Units
4. Euclidean Geometry
5. Analytic Geometry/Functions 
6. Number Theory
7. More Calculus
More Site Areas 
8. Complex Numbers 
9. Qc Maths  Education  
10. Secondary IV(?) maths
11. Real  Analysis 
12. LaTeX2HotEqn:
13. Electric Circuits Etc  
14.  Français
15. Algebra, Odds & Ends, Etc
More Site Areas 
16. Math Education Essays
17. Telling & Working with Time
18. Maps, Plans & Drawings
19. Quantitative Skills for  home, shopping and work 
20. Statistics Useful, or Not.
Try the
Twiddla Whiteboard
to work online with others.

[Site Entrance & Hub]Back ] Up ] Next ][Site Exit]


YOU are better than YOU think. Show yourself  how:  

      |      
//  _   _ \\
/\             /\
  <|  (o)   (o)   |> 
 \     | |      / 

Read  logic chapters 1 to 5  in online volume Three Skills for Algebra  for greater skills & confidence in  work 
and study

 -/[]\- 
||
   / \_ 
 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

 Logic chapters 1 to 5  re- appear not in sequence, as is or longer,  in  Volume 1A,  Pattern Based Reason, Bon Appetite.

Logic Mastery
 Amazing, Amusing, Amorous,  Delicious, Delightful, Edifying, Strengthening Elixir. 
It eases work & learning difficulties Makes the hard easier. Opens eyes. Leads to greater precision.
in reading and
writing

Logic mastery makes the hard, easier. Logic mastery  leads to better, stronger and richer comprehension.  Logic mastery  improves reading and writing.  Logic mastery ease learning difficulties.  Logic mastery gives a headstart.  In sum, logic mastery  will develops critical thinking, improve reading and writing, and give a firmer base for work and studies at many levels. Good luck.


After logic  (a) continue reading Three Skills for Algebra, chapters 8 to 14  and do so alongside site area on solving liinear Equations ; or (b) see this calculus starter lesson and Volume 3, Why Slopes  & More Math, chapters 2 to 6;

      |      
//  _   _ \\
/\             /\
<|   (o)   (o)  |> 
     | |     |
   \             /   
\    =   /

Caution: Site advice is approximately correct, for some circumstances, not all. That leaves room for thought

 -/[]\- 
||
  _ / \     
 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

What may be learnt and when depends on how skills and concepts are developed. Making the hard easier and clearer will allow earlier & richer development of skills and concepts.


Try the Twiddla Whiteboard. In principle, it  allows to people to draw and chat together online on a copy of this webpage or a clean sheet. The chat may be via text or audio.  Visit www.twiddla.com to set up whiteboards to work with the webpage of your choice.

For online automated help in senior high school maths & calculus, visit  quickmath.com  For Automatic Calculus and Algebra Help with derivatives, integrals, graphs, linear equations, matrix algebra, visit calc101.com  With  overlap, each site quickmath & calc101offers a different range of services, some free, some not, all based on webmathematica. Good luck.

Chapter 30
Truth Tables

Previous Chapter: 29 Contrapositive Form of Implication or Conditional IF A THEN B

Note: Online Book Pattern Based Reason includes this chapters and more on logic and reason.

1  Introduction

Instead of talking about rules and situations (or events) we will talk in this section about statements and assertions. Suppose A and B are shorthand symbols for statements (events, situations etc.) which can be true or false but not both simultaneously in a given situation. Given two such statements A and B, we can define the new statements A or B, A and B, if A then B, NOT A and A iff B. Our goal in this chapter is to say when these new statements are true and when they are false.

The foregoing phrases in terms of situations and rules can be expressed as follows:

  • a statement of the form A or B is true when at least one of the statements A and B is true. Otherwise it is false.
  • a statement of the form A and B is true when both of the statements A and B are true. Otherwise it is false.
  • a statement if A then B is declared to be true if (i) statement B is true whenever statement A is true and (ii) whenever statement B is false, so is statement A.
  • a statement NOT A is declared to be true when A is false, and this statement NOT A is declared to be false when A is true.
  • when at least one of the statements A and B is true, so is the other, and provided (ii) that when at least one of the statements A and B is false, so is the other. (All this is a bit of a tongue twister.)

2  NOT Revisited

The following truth table shows the relationship between the truth (T) and falseness (F) of A and NOT (A).

row A not(A)
1 T F
2 F T

The statement A is always true when statement NOT A is never true.

The statement NOT A is always true when statement A is never true. Here instead of saying never true, we may say always false.

3  AND Revisited

The truth (T) or falseness (F) of the statement A and B depends on the respective truth or falseness of the statements A and B. This situation is summarized in the following table.

 
row statement A statement B A and B
1 T T T
2 T F F
3 F T F
4 F F F

The statement A and B is said to be always true (to always hold) if the situations in rows 2, 3 and 4 of the above table never occur.

4  OR Revisited

The statement A or B is said to be (mathematical usage) when and only when at least one of the statements A and B is true. The following table summarizes this situation. It shows when the statement A or B is true and when it is false.

row statement A statement B A or B
1 T T T
2 T F T
3 F T T
4 F F F

With this usage, the statement A or B is guaranteed to be true provided the situation in row 4 of the above table never occurs.

5  If-Then Revisited

We consider the implication if A then B. The following table signals when this implication rule is false and when it is true. Here false signals the rule implication is disobeyed, while true signals not disobeyed. We declare that an implication rule if A then B is always true provided the situation in row 2 never occurs.

row statement A statement B if A

then B

1 T T T
2 T F F
3 F T T
4 F F T

The implication if A then B is said to be vacuously true when statement A is always false.

6  If-and-Only-If Revisited

The following truth table if for the two-way implication A if and only if B. We observe the two-way implication is always true if the situations in rows 2 and 3 never occur.

 
row statement A statement B A if and

only if B

1 T T T
2 T F F
3 F T F
4 F F T

Remember the letter F signals false, and corresponds to the idea of rule being disobeyed. Also remember that the letter T signals true and corresponds to the ideas of a rule being obeyed, or not disobeyed.


Next: Chapter 31: Indirect Reason

 

www.whyslopes.com
Volume 2, Three Skills for Algebra -

Preview, starter & further lessons for logic and algebra to (i) improve work & study skills;  (ii) to  to ease or avoid algebra (math) fears & difficulties; and (iii) to fill gaps in the exposition of mathematics.

Foreword, Chapters and Appendices follow.

Foreword
1. Introduction
2. Implication Rules
3. Chains of Reason
4. Romeo and Juliet
4. Induction Mathematical
5 Knowledge Islands
6  Old Language
7  Arith Skill Check
7. The Next Chapters
8 The Three Skills
8 VNR-Concise-Encyclopedia
PS. What is a Variable
9. Algebra Talk
10 Two More Skills
11 Why Shorthand
12 Shorthand Usage
13 What's Next
14 Compound Interest
15 Linear Equations
PS I.  Distributive Law
PS II. Polynomials
16 Painless Proofs
17 Pythagoras
18 Rules of Algebra
19  Functions & Sets
20 Degrees & Radians
21 What's Next
22. Arith & Geometric Sums
23 Summation Notation
24 Your Money
25 Induction & Recursion
26 What's Next
27 Pronouns in Logic
28 Occurrence Tables
29 Contrapositive
30 Truth Tables
31 Indirect Reason
A. Advice For Learning

Real Player Videos

Perfect arithmetic skills with whole numbers & fractions
after or besides chapters 1 to 14.

Arithmetic Videos Summary
Addition with Decimals
Subtraction with Decimals
Multiplication with Decimals
Fraction Arithmetic
Recognizing Primes
Long Division for Decimals
Square Root Simplification
Greatest Common Divisors
Least Common Multiples

Words Before Symbols: 
What is a Variable?
Introduction
Variation between Examples

Variation of Letters

A letter denotes a variable

Cases of Double Variation

Three Notions of a Variable

Constants, Parameters
& Variables

Talking about numbers
Dependent or Independent
Variable, a Matter of Choice
Complex number: starter lesson  

Solving Linear Equations:

A. Letters and Lengths

B. & C. Solving Linear Eq'ns
with stick diagrams.

(i) x + 20 = 29
(ii) 2x + 5 = 20
(iii) 3x + 10 = 32
(iv) 5a + 16 = 3a+ 24

(v)  (½)x + 8 = 24½
(vI)  (¾)a + 16 = (¼)a+ 24
(vii) (¾)q + 17 = 32
(viii) 13 =[2/3]x +7 twice
(x) Animated Examples
(i) Integral Coefficients (A)
(ii) Integral Coefficients (B)
(iii) Fractional Coefficients

(iv) With Parameters

Problem Solving with Linear
Equations in one or many
unknowns, and in essentially 
one unknown - Symbols before
words. 


C. Solving Linear Eq'ns 
without
Stick Diagrams

D. Problems in 
essentially one unknown

E: 2D Systems - Sub Methods.
F. Larger Systems




www.whyslopes.com
[Top of this Page] [Site Exit] Back ] Up ] Next ]
[Comments, Reactions, Feedback]
: Favourite SitesBBC News  and mathematics portion of  English National Curriculum  

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Copyright to comments & contributions are owned by the Poster. 
The Rest © 1995 onward by site author,   Alan Selby,
a 1983 McGill. Ph. D. in mathematics
All Rights Reserved.