It's not so much that it is "boolean multiplication" (because how do you define that, also because digital representation of booleans implies that integer multiplication still applies) so much as AND follows similar Laws as multiplication, in particular AND is distributive across OR in a similar way multiplication is distributive over addition. [Example: a * (b + c) <=> a * b + a * c] Because it follows similar rules, it helps with some forms of intuition of patterns when writing them with the familiar operators.
It's somewhat common in set notations to use * and + for set union and set intersection for very similar reasons. Some programming languages even use that in their type language (a union of two types is A * B and an intersection is A + B).
Interestingly, this is why Category Theory in part exists to describe the similarities between operators in mathematics such as how * and ∧ contrast/are similar. Category Theory gets a bad rap for being the origin of monads and fun phrases like "monads are a monoid in the category of endofunctors", but it also answers a few fun questions like why are * and ∧ so similar? (They are similar functions that operate in different "categories".) Admittedly that's a very rough, lay gloss on it, but it's still an interesting perspective on what people talk about when they talk about Category Theory.
Do you really need to introduce category theory for that?
Seems like overkill, abstract algebra seems sufficient to categorize both boolean logic and integer operations as having the common structure of a ring.
I would normally interpret "Boolean multiplication" as multiplication over GF(2), where + would be XOR. This notation is fairly common when discussing things like cryptography or CRCs.
Thx for your thorough explanation! I don’t know much about these things, just thought about similarities in the algebraic properties, especially with regards to the zero-element: 0*1=0.
WorldMaker|8 months ago
It's somewhat common in set notations to use * and + for set union and set intersection for very similar reasons. Some programming languages even use that in their type language (a union of two types is A * B and an intersection is A + B).
Interestingly, this is why Category Theory in part exists to describe the similarities between operators in mathematics such as how * and ∧ contrast/are similar. Category Theory gets a bad rap for being the origin of monads and fun phrases like "monads are a monoid in the category of endofunctors", but it also answers a few fun questions like why are * and ∧ so similar? (They are similar functions that operate in different "categories".) Admittedly that's a very rough, lay gloss on it, but it's still an interesting perspective on what people talk about when they talk about Category Theory.
wasabi991011|8 months ago
Seems like overkill, abstract algebra seems sufficient to categorize both boolean logic and integer operations as having the common structure of a ring.
AlotOfReading|8 months ago
dse1982|8 months ago
yorwba|8 months ago
Yes. Multiplication of unsigned 1-bit integers is the same function as boolean AND.
Ar-Curunir|8 months ago