The AND operation is a fundamental logical binary operation in computer science and digital electronics. It takes two binary inputs and produces a single binary output. The three Binary Operations, AND, OR, and NOT, deal with variables with values like true or false, yes or no, hot or cold, high(1) or low(0), etc.
The AND operation is known as Logical AND Operation and Boolean AND Operation. The AND operation is symbolized by a dot(.) or by the absence of an operator, and it represents a fundamental logical operation that takes two binary inputs and produces a single binary output. The output is only true (1) when both inputs are true (1); otherwise, it yields false (0).
The following circuit diagram shows the symbolic representation of the AND operation.
In the figure above, two switches are connected in series.
- If both S1 and S2 switches are open, the output Y will be 0 as no signals will be received at the output.
- If the S1 switch is closed and the S2 switch is open, then output, Y=0
- If the S1 switch is open and the S2 switch is closed, then output, Y=0
- If S1 and S2 switches are closed, then output, Y=0. In this case, the circuit gets closed, and the output is equal to the input.
“The AND operation produces a 1 output only when both inputs are 1.”
For instance, “A.B = Y” or “AB = Y” is read as “A and B equals Y.” This logic can be best explained through a truth table given below.
| A | B | Y |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | 1 | 1 |
The truth table for the AND operation shows that the output Y is zero only when inputs A and B are zero. If A is equal to 0 and B is equal to 1, the value of Y is 0. Similarly, if A is equal to 1 and B is equal to 0, the output Y is also 0. Finally, if both A and B are equal to 1, the value of Y equals 1.