Talk:Complete Boolean algebra

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] This page was completely wrong

A complete Boolean algebra is a Boolean algebra in which every subset has a supremum. Not sure which is best--complete rewrite, or redirect to Boolean algebra, where completeness ought to be treated (but isn't yet). --Trovatore 14:56, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Went for the rewrite. Hardly more than a dicdef--at some point should either be expanded or changed to a redirect. --Trovatore 15:07, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

To be honest, I prefer the rewrite. A short article is better than none at all, and I will try to come up with something abou this. Based on the way you talk about it, you seem to know a lot about this. By the way, when you say "subset", you should specify what it is a subset of. Scythe33 23:58, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I think that what we have here is a classic case of the same phrase meaning different things to different people. The original page referred to a complete boolean algebra as seen by computer scientists (see http://users.senet.com.au/~dwsmith/concept1.htm for an example - not a very good one perhaps - but the quote from that page "The canonical expansions imply that any Boolean function can be expressed in terms of the AND and ExOR operators. ExOR algebra is therefore a complete Boolean algebra." supports my point). Unfortunately, it seems that the same term means something quite different in a purely mathematical sense. I have no idea how to resolve this ambiguity, so I am merely highlighting its existance in the hope that someone can find a way to fix it. 196.36.80.163 06:56, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, whaddaya know about that. If this is actually an established usage in CS, I suppose we'll have to make a dab of some sort. On the first two pages of Google hits for

"complete boolean algebra" -wiki

as far as I can tell, all but one of them--the one you mentioned--is about the math notion. So I think the math notion should continue to get the primary article; if you want to write a complete Boolean algebra (computer science) article (perhaps copied from the history of this article), I'll put a dab notice at the top of this article. Ideally we should get an admin to copy the history over too.--Trovatore 07:23, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Right, done.

OK, I've put the disambig notice at the top of this article. You may wish to comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing and Talk:Complete Boolean algebra (computer science), especially if you have knowledge of this term actively being used by workers in computer science other than the author of that webpage (dwsmith). --Trovatore 19:13, 10 October 2005 (UTC)