Machines of all types, including computers, are designed to perform specific tasks in exact well defined manners. Some machine components are purely physical in nature, because their composition and behavior are strictly regulated by chemical, thermodynamic, and physical properties. For example, an engine is designed to transform the energy released by the combustion of gasoline and oxygen into rotating a crankshaft. Other machine components are algorithmic in nature, because their designs primarily follow constraints necessary to implement a set of logical functions as defined by human beings rather than the laws of physics. A traffic light’s behavior is predominantly defined by human beings rather than by natural physical laws. This book is concerned with the design of digital systems that are suited to the algorithmic requirements of their particular range of applications. Digital logic and arithmetic are critical building blocks in constructing such systems. An algorithm is a procedure for solving a problem through a series of finite and specific steps. It can be represented as a set of mathematical formulas, lists of sequential operations, or any combination thereof. Each of these finite steps can be represented by a Boolean logic equation. Boolean logic is a branch of mathematics that was discovered in the nineteenth century by an English mathematician named George Boole. The basic theory is that logical relationships can be modeled by algebraic equations. Rather than using arithmetic operations such as addition and subtraction, Boolean algebra employs logical operations including AND, OR, and NOT. Boolean variables have two enumerated values: true and false, represented numerically as 1 and 0, respectively.
