Welcome to episode #2 of the series, if you missed episode #1, check it out here: https://qubit-and-neuron.beehiiv.com/p/can-computers-do-pull-ups

If you were hoping for an answer to the question at the end of Episode #1, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little longer. It takes several episodes to lay enough groundwork before we can get there. So, for now, let’s step back and dig a little deeper.

The story begins in a crowded classroom in 19th century England. A young teacher named George Boole sat with a stack of schoolbooks and a head full of questions. People around him argued about numbers and planets and steam engines. Philosophers argued about the rules of reasoning. Boole looked at both conversations and wondered a simple, strange thing. What if thinking could be handled like calculation?

His first insight was stark. Any clear logical statement ends in one of two outcomes: true or false. Boole chose 1 for true and 0 for false. Suddenly every statement could be represented by a single number. “Milk is white” becomes 1. “Water contains gold” becomes 0. It may seem trivial, but this was the first time in history that a logical statement had been expressed mathematically.Then came the deeper question: can composite statements also be expressed mathematically? Everyday speech is full of conditions like “I will take an umbrella to office if it is cloudy.“ If you closely observe there are two statements in it:

A. I will take the umbrella to office

B. It is cloudy

What ties them together is not a new kind of truth, but a connection between truths. Boole’s great labor was to find the smallest set of connections that could express any compound statement. He proved that only three are needed: Inclusion, Choice and Exclusion: AND, OR, and NOT. With these, every logical structure — from the simplest condition to the most elaborate argument — can be built and manipulated like algebra.