Moved: Trinary logic

This was posted a few years ago on my previous blog (which I abandoned). I updated it slightly:

I was recently reading a book on binary logic circuits, and I got an idea. Since electronic charges can be positive or negative, why not make a logic system with three values: positive charge, negative charge, and no charge. I invented a system of "trinary" logic which uses these three values. I don't know if it could be implemented in hardware, but I know it could be easily implemented in software.

The rules of trinary logic are:
The + and * functions represent addition and multiplication as in normal math, but 1 + 1 = -1 and -1 + -1 = 1

This means that and number plus itself is the opposite of itself:

0 + 0 = 0 * -1 = 0
1 + 1 = 1 * -1 =  -1
-1 + -1 =  -1 * -1 = 1

This makes trinary logic useful in constructing cryptographic systems (systems of codes)

I recommend that the negative symbol (-) be used to represent -1 because -1 is the only negative value in trinary. Similarly, you can substitute "neg" for -1 while speaking.