In logic, negation, also called the logical not or logical complement, is an operation that takes a proposition
to another proposition "not
", written
,
,
or
. It is interpreted intuitively as being true when
is false, and false when
is true. For example, if
is "Spot runs", then "not
" is "Spot does not run". An operand of a negation is called a negand or negatum.
Negation is a unary logical connective. It may furthermore be applied not only to propositions, but also to notions, truth values, or semantic values more generally. In classical logic, negation is normally identified with the truth function that takes truth to falsity (and vice versa). In intuitionistic logic, according to the Brouwer–Heyting–Kolmogorov interpretation, the negation of a proposition
is the proposition whose proofs are the refutations of
.