COLLEGE OF COMPUTER

STUDIES
PREPARED BY: P. FERNANDEZ
 Discrete Structures
LESSON 5
Logical Form And Logical Equivalence
The content of a statement is not the same as the logical form. For instance,
consider the 2 following statements:

 If Sally wakes up late or if she misses the bus, she will be late for work.
Therefore, if Sally arrives at work on time, she did not wake up late and
did not miss the bus.

 If x is a real number such that x < -2 or x > 2, then x2 > 4. Therefore, if

x2 < 4, then x > -2 and x < 2.
Logical Form And Logical Equivalence
 Logical analysis does not help determine the merit of an argument. Instead it
helps to analyze the argument's form to determine if the truth of the
conclusion follows from the truth of the preceding statements.
While the content of the two above statements is different, their logical form is similar.
 Let p stand for the statements "Sally wakes up late" and "x is a real number such that x < -2". 
 Let q stand for the statements "Sally misses the bus" and "x is a real number such that x > -2". 
 Let r stand for the statements "Sally is late for work" and "x2 > 4".
 Then the common form for both of the above arguments is:
 If p or q, then r.
 Therefore, if not r, then not p and not q.
Logical Equivalence
 A logical equivalence is a statement that two mathematical sentence forms
are completely interchangeable:
if one is true, so is the other; if one is false, so is the other.
For example, we could express that an implication is equivalent to its contrapositive in
either of the following ways:
Logical Equivalence
 Two statements are logically equivalent if, and only if, their
resulting forms are logically equivalent when identical statement
variables are used to represent component statements.
 Two statement forms are logically equivalent if, and only if, their
resulting truth tables are identical for each variation of statement
variables.
Logical Equivalence
Other logically equivalent statements include:
Logical Equivalence
NAME/DESCRIPTION 1st sentence ... is equivalent to ... 2nd sentence INTUITION

de Morgan's Law: an ‘and’ sentence is false

negating an ‘and’ not(A and B) ... is equivalent to ... (not A) or (not B) when
sentence A is false or B is false

de Morgan's Law: an ‘or’ sentence is false

negating an ‘or’ not(A or B) ... is equivalent to ... (not A) and (not B) when
sentence A is false and B is false

the grouping doesn't matter

associativity of ‘and’ (A and B) and C ... is equivalent to ... A and (B and C)
in an ‘and’ sentence

the grouping doesn't matter

associativity of ‘or’ (A or B) or C ... is equivalent to ... A or (B or C)
in an ‘or’ sentence
Logical Equivalence
NAME/DESCRIPTION 1st sentence ... is equivalent to ... 2nd sentence INTUITION

commutativity of the order doesn't matter in

A and B ... is equivalent to ... B and A
‘and’ an ‘and’ sentence

the order doesn't matter in

commutativity of ‘or’ A or B ... is equivalent to ... B or A
an ‘or’ sentence

negating twice in succession

law of double
not(not A) ... is equivalent to ... A gets you back to where you
negation started

Similar to:
distributive law A or (B and C) ... is equivalent to ... (A or B) and (A or C)
a(b+c)=ab+ac
Logical Equivalence
NAME/DESCRIPTION 1st1st sentence ... is equivalent to ... 2nd2nd sentence INTUITION

similar to: 
distributive law A and (B or C) ... is equivalent to ... (A and B) or (A and C)
a(b+c)=ab+ac

an implication is true when

alternate form
A⇒B ... is equivalent to ... (not A) or B the hypothesis is false or
of an implication the conclusion is true

contrapositive an implication is equivalent to

A⇒B ... is equivalent to ... (not B)⇒(not A)
of an implication its contrapositive

an implication is false when

negating an
not(A⇒B) ... is equivalent to ... A and (not B) the hypothesis is true and
implication the conclusion is false

this is justification for the

biconditional
A⟺B ... is equivalent to ... (A⇒B) and (B⇒A) ‘double arrow’
statement that is used for equivalence