A First Look at Propositional Logic

There are many reasons why a computer scientist should study logic. For example, logic underlies the reasoning in mathematical statements. In particular, proving that a program meets its specification is argued with the help of logical deductions. We begin by studying propositional logic, which is one of the simplest logical theories. Nevertheless, propositional logic has a large number of applications; in particular, it provides the foundation for combinatorial circuits which implement the arithmetic logic unit of a processor. A nice property of propositional logic is that the truth of the statements formulated in this logic can be checked in a simple way by a computer. Surprisingly, propositional logic leads to the most intriguing open problem in computer science.