Henry Maurice Sheffer

Henry Maurice Sheffer (1882 - 1964) is an American logician.

Life

Sheffer was a Polish Jew born in Ukraine, which emigrated in the United States with his/her parents. It continued its studies at the University of Harvard, learning logic near Josiah Royce. Sheffer passed all its career to be taught at the department of philosophy of Harvard.

Work

Sheffer proved in 1913 that the Boolean algebra can be defined using one only binary operator, NAND, or its dual NOR. In the same way, the Calcul of the proposals can be formulated by means of one only connector, the “bar of Sheffer”, which with same the Truth table as logical NAND. Charles Peirce had discovered these facts in 1880; but its text was not published before 1933.

References

  • Michael Scanlan (bibliographical test, year 2000): “The Known and Unknown H. Mr. Sheffer”, The Transactions off the C.S. Peirce Society 36 , pages 193 to 224.

See too

  • Calculation of the proposals, section “the language”.
  • (translation: the bar of Sheffer).

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