Boolean-valued function
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A boolean-valued function is a function of the type \(f : X \to \mathbb{B},\) where \(X\!\) is an arbitrary set and where \(\mathbb{B}\) is a boolean domain.
In the formal sciences — mathematics, mathematical logic, statistics — and their applied disciplines, a boolean-valued function may also be referred to as a characteristic function, indicator function, predicate, or proposition. In all of these uses it is understood that the various terms refer to a mathematical object and not the corresponding semiotic sign or syntactic expression.
In formal semantic theories of truth, a truth predicate is a predicate on the sentences of a formal language, interpreted for logic, that formalizes the intuitive concept that is normally expressed by saying that a sentence is true. A truth predicate may have additional domains beyond the formal language domain, if that is what is required to determine a final truth value.
Examples
A binary sequence is a boolean-valued function \(f : \mathbb{N}^+ \to \mathbb{B}\), where \(\mathbb{N}^+ = \{ 1, 2, 3, \ldots \},\). In other words, \(f\!\) is an infinite sequence of 0's and 1's.
A binary sequence of length \(k\!\) is a boolean-valued function \(f : [k] \to \mathbb{B}\), where \([k] = \{ 1, 2, \ldots k \}.\)
References
- Brown, Frank Markham (2003), Boolean Reasoning: The Logic of Boolean Equations, 1st edition, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA. 2nd edition, Dover Publications, Mineola, NY, 2003.
- Kohavi, Zvi (1978), Switching and Finite Automata Theory, 1st edition, McGraw–Hill, 1970. 2nd edition, McGraw–Hill, 1978.
- Korfhage, Robert R. (1974), Discrete Computational Structures, Academic Press, New York, NY.
- Mathematical Society of Japan, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics, 2nd edition, 2 vols., Kiyosi Itô (ed.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1993. Cited as EDM.
- Minsky, Marvin L., and Papert, Seymour, A. (1988), Perceptrons, An Introduction to Computational Geometry, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1969. Revised, 1972. Expanded edition, 1988.
Syllabus
Logical operators
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Document history
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