Is it technically incorrect to show steps when constructing a truth table?

[匿名]

2018-05-07 6:56 am

Hello to everyone who's reading this. :)

I have a sort of pedantic question.

Let's say I wanted to construct the truth table for p ^ ¬q.

Is it correct to give the following?:
_____________
p | q | ¬q | p ^ ¬q |
0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
---------------------

Or, would I have to give the following?:
___________
p | q | p ^ ¬q |
0 | 0 | 0 |
0 | 1 | 0 |
1 | 0 | 1 |
1 | 1 | 0 |
-----------------

(This isn't really about what a teacher would accept on a test, but rather about whether both are strictly correct or if only the bottom one is correct.)

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

回答 (1)

Puzzling

2018-05-07 7:14 am

I'd opt for the first one since it shows more steps. While you get the same result and can skip a column in the second one, you might make a mistake and you also are being less transparent about how you got to the answer.

P.S. This would be especially true if you are showing several things such as if you wanted to show ¬(p -> q) to see if it was equivalent to p ^ ¬q. Just showing the final results isn't very helpful.

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