Truth Tables, Equivalent

Statements, and
Tautologies
At the end of the lesson, the students are
expected to:
1. construct the truth tables for compound

statements involving
2. identify tautologies and self-contractions; and

3. determine equivalent statements.

If the given statement involves only two simple
statements, then start with a table with four
rows (see the table below), called the standard
truth table form, and proceed as shown in
Example 3.2.1.
Compound statements that involve exactly three
simple statements require a standard truth table
form with 23 = 8 rows, as shown below.
Example 3.2.1
a. Construct a table for .
b. Use the truth table from part a to determine the
truth value of , given that p is true
and q is false.
Solution.

a. Start with the standard truth table form and

then include a column.
Solution. (cont)
Now use the truth values from the and
columns to produce the truth values for as
shown in the rightmost column of the following
table.
Solution. (cont)
Negate the truth values in the column to
produce the following.
Solution. (cont)
As our last step, we form the disjunction of
with and place the results in the rightmost column of
the table. See the following table. The shaded column is
the truth table for .
Solution.

b. In row 2 of the above truth table, we see that

when p is true, and q is false, the statement
in the rightmost column is true.
Equivalent Statements
Definition 3.2.1 Two statements are equivalent if
they both have the same truth value for all
possible truth values of their simple statements.
Equivalent statements have identical truth values
in the final columns of their truth tables.

The notation is used to indicate that the

statements p and q are equivalent.
Example – Verify That Two Statements
Are Equivalent

Example 3.2.3 Show that and

are equivalent statements.
Solution.
We construct the two truth tables and compare the results.

T T F T F
T T F F
T F T T F
T F F F
F T F F T
F T T T
F F T T F
F F T F
Solution.

Since the truth tables show that ( ) and

have the same truth values for all
possible truth values of their simple statements,
we conclude that ( ) .
De Morgan’s Laws for Statements
For any statements and ,

This equivalences can be used to restate certain

English sentences in an equivalent form.
Example 3.2.4 Use De Morgan’s law to restate
the given sentence in an equivalent form.
It is not true that, I graduated or I got a job.
Solution.
Let p be the statement “I graduated” and q be
the statement “I got a job.”
Then, in symbolic form, the given sentence is
. By De Morgan’s law,
.
Thus, the given sentence is equivalent to
“I did not graduate and I did not get a job.”
 Tautologies and
Self-Contradictions
Definition 3.2.2 A tautology is a statement
that is always true.

Definition 3.2.3 A self-contradiction is a

statement that is always false.
Example 3.2.5 Show that is a
tautology.
Solution.
T T F T T
T F F F T
F T T T T
T F T T T

The final column of the table shows that the

statement is always true.
Thus, is a tautology.