How Do You Derive the Second DeMorgan's Law Using the First and Double Negation?

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SUMMARY

The discussion focuses on deriving the second DeMorgan's Law, which states that the negation of a disjunction is equivalent to the conjunction of the negations: - (P or Q) is equivalent to - P and - Q. The first DeMorgan's Law, - (P and Q) is equivalent to - P or - Q, and the double negation law, - - P is equivalent to P, are utilized in this derivation. The user initially struggled with the application of these laws but ultimately clarified the correct approach by starting with -P and -Q and applying the negation law followed by the first DeMorgan's Law.

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Homework Statement



Use the first DeMorgan's law and the double negation law to derive the second DeMorgan's Law

Homework Equations



First DeMorgan's law is - (P and Q) is equivalent to - P or - Q

Negation Law is - - P is equivalent to P

Second DeMorgan's law is - (P or Q) is equivalent to - P and - Q

The Attempt at a Solution



I tried plugging in - - P for P. Should I do this for Q too? However this is not taking me anywhere.
 
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Never mind I found why I am doing it wrong. I need to start with

-P and -Q then use negation law
- [ -P and -Q]
- [ -(-P and -Q)] then use first law
- [ P or Q ] which is equivalent to -P and -Q !
 
Unless I'm mistaken, you could prove this using a type of table with P, Q, P V Q and -(P V Q) at the top columns, and filling the columns with P and Q out with every possible combination of 0 and 1, and calculating the outcome. This table should then be equivalent to another table with P, Q, -P, -Q, -P & -Q at the top columns. i.e., for example, if P = 1 and Q = 0, the statements you with to prove should both equal 0.

Sorry if this was confusing.
 

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