Holy god... boolean algebra is an absolute mindf*ck :(

[Maximilian]

Who would have thought that something that can only be true/false could get so complex Any tips for dealing with this stuff?

 

[janas19]

I am in w/ OP (don't like mindfucks boo :-( .

 

[busydude]

There are some pretty neat lectures on youtube.

 

[Cogman]

Meh.. really not that difficult.

When in doubt, draw up a truth table.

When you need to simplify, use K-Maps.

If you have too many variables to simplify with a K-Map, you have too many variables.

Everything else is pretty straight forward, The only really crazy law is DeMorgans, everything else is just basic algebra.

 

[TecHNooB]

Meh.. really not that difficult.

When in doubt, draw up a truth table.

When you need to simplify, use K-Maps.

If you have too many variables to simplify with a K-Map, you have too many variables.

Everything else is pretty straight forward, The only really crazy law is DeMorgans, everything else is just basic algebra.

what's so crazy about demorgan's? I don't even remember how to make/use a k-map, but I still remember demorgan's.

 

[Maximilian]

x ⇒ y

is the same as

¬x OR y

Thats correct right? Is this always the case for when ⇒ is used?

 

[soccerballtux]

what? We had to know this for my intro-to-CompE, first major-related class in college /brag

So what brings you to these?

 

[soccerballtux]

x ⇒ y

is the same as

¬x OR y

Thats correct right? Is this always the case for when ⇒ is used?

Hm hard to draw this stuff on computer without handwriting. Not sure what those symbols are. I only know about the bar on top of them, if I recall correctly. Maybe your class is using different symbols...

 

[soccerballtux]

the names they come up with for this stuff are stupid--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_algebra
conjunction, disjunction, etc.
I am fairly certain that at least on some level they do that to make it seem more complicated. This way when academia writes a PhD or Graduate paper, or a book, they can "crowd out" someone who doesn't understand the terminology.
It's a power play.

Much better to think of these symbols simply in logic-gate operations.
Conjunction is bitwise-AND.
Disjunction is bitwise-OR.
Negation/Complement-- bitwise NOT.

That's all really, everything else layers on top.

 

[iCyborg]

It's not stupid, it's just terminology, every field has it so people are on the same page. Some mathematician might equally call programmer's names stupid, like why the f*** are there two ANDs (bitwise and regular). Just to "crowd out" nonprogrammers who don't understand the terminology, right?
Or virtual functions (are they functions or not ), overloaded operators, or arguments to functions - in math functions have arguments and that's it, what's this passing by value/address/reference nonsense, just making things complicated for no reason...

 

[hellfreeze]

When I was struggling with it the first few chapter of "Discrete Math Demystified" helped out a bit. The most important thing is practice. It seems crazy now because it's a new concept, but later it will make more sense.

 

[alkemyst]

I liked discrete math although the book and teacher were terrible. Matrix theory is another cool one.

 

[Sidekicknichola]

Boolean always just clicked for me... just make sure you have a truths table and +1 for youtube... I neverrrrrrr went to class because our professor sent out that days lesson plan every morning... I would just youtube other lectures from here and there and learn that way from home. Made things much easier for me and I could understand it the actual words (it was my professors first year in the USA from Asia so his accent was pretty thick)

 

[Apathetic]

x ⇒ y

is the same as

¬x OR y

Thats correct right? Is this always the case for when ⇒ is used?

That's correct.

Dave

 

[Cogman]

what's so crazy about demorgan's? I don't even remember how to make/use a k-map, but I still remember demorgan's.

Well, crazy as in "This doesn't look like regular algebra" not crazy as in "Woah, Magic!"