HiveBrain v1.2.0
Get Started
← Back to all entries
patternMinor

Proving that $A \vee (\neg A \wedge B) \equiv A \vee B$

Submitted by: @import:stackexchange-cs··
0
Viewed 0 times
veeprovingequivnegthatwedge

Problem

I'm reading a book at the moment about logic gates and Boolean simplification. There is a part which I can't seem to follow.

I can easily work out that $A \vee (\neg A \wedge B) \equiv A \vee B$ using a truth table as it's easy to see.

However, I can't seem to turn $A \vee (\neg A \wedge B)$ into $A \vee B$ using steps such as distributive / absorption etc.

Can someone talk me through the steps that you would take to simplify this?

Solution

Note that

$\qquad A \lor (B \land C) \equiv (A \lor B) \land (A \lor C)$;

you can "multiply out". Add in

$\qquad (A \lor \lnot A) \land B \equiv B$

and you are done.

Context

StackExchange Computer Science Q#63769, answer score: 8

Revisions (0)

No revisions yet.