Self-duality of two boolean functions. I'm stuck with one problem. I have two boolean functions: 1) x oplus 1. 2) x oplus y oplus 1

Leroy Gray

Leroy Gray

Answered question

2022-09-06

Self-duality of two boolean functions
I'm stuck with one problem. I have two boolean functions:
1) x 1
2) x y 1
The question is which of them is self-dual and which is not. I know the definition that one boolean function is self-dual iff it is equivalent to its dual function (i.e. if their outputs are respectively equal). As a result I get that 1) is not self-dual, and 2) is self-dual. When I checked the answer, it claims the absolute opposite - 1) is self-dual and 2) is not. I will show my truth table for case 1):
1) x 1
x 1 x 1 0 1 1 1 1 0
Dual of x 1: ¬ ( ¬ x 0 )
x 0 x 1 ( x 0 ) 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
The one mistake I've made could probably be putting the brackets - maybe negation should be applied before XOR, but then the second function will also be self-dual. I'm a little confused and will be grateful if anyone clarifies this to me. I've used the following definition for dual function:
The dual of f(x,y,z) is ¬ f ( ¬ x , ¬ y , ¬ z ).

Answer & Explanation

Lily Travis

Lily Travis

Beginner2022-09-07Added 14 answers

Step 1
You should only insist the definition you gave at the end of the post: the dual of (a ternary) f is the mapping
( x , y , z ) ¬ f ( ¬ x , ¬ y , ¬ z )
and analogously for binary or unary functions.
Then the dual of the constant map x 1 is indeed the constant map x 0.
The dual of the map ( x , y ) x y is indeed the map ( x , y ) x y by the de Morgan laws.
However, when calculating the dual of terms like f ( x ) = x 1 (which is by the way just ¬ x), we don't need to involve the dual of any subterm, just apply the above definition right away to obtain x ¬ ( ¬ x 1 ) ).
Alternatively, we should indeed arrive to the same conclusion by using the dual of every occuring operation.
Here you can verify that the dual of is just , and with that, the dual of f is x ( x 0 ) which is the same as x ¬ x that is the same as f.

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