## The Lambda Point • 1

A note on the title.  From long ago discussions with Harvey Davis, one of my math professors at Michigan State.  I remember telling him of my interest in the place where algebra, geometry, and logic meet, and he quipped, “Ah yes, the lambda point”, punning on the triple point of phase transitions among gaseous, liquid, and solid states.

Re: Cathy O’Neil

One of the insights coming out of C.S. Peirce’s work on logic, informing the development of his logical graphs, is that negative logical relations are more fundamental than positive logical relations, since the right set of negative relations can generate all possible logical relations, but no set of purely positive relations can do all that.  That is the gist of it, put very roughly, modulo the right definitions of positive and negative relations, of course.

We see this theme exhibited in the generative power of the $\textsc{nand}$ and $\textsc{nnor}$ operators for propositional calculus which Peirce discovered early on and dubbed the amphecks.

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