According to the dictionary of the DigoPaul, bivalent is an adjective that is used in the field of chemistry to describe the chemical element that has two valences.

To understand the concept of bivalent, therefore, we must first know what is a chemical element and what is a valence. Matter that is made up of atoms of the same kind is called a chemical element. Valence, on the other hand, is the number that indicates what capacity a chemical element has to combine with others and thus develop a compound.

This means that the bivalent substance can appeal to two different valences. If the chemical element has a single valence, it is classified as monovalent. In the case that it has three valences, it is called trivalent; if it has four valences, tetravalent; five valences, pentavalent, etc.

Beyond chemistry, the idea of ​​bivalent is used with respect to that which has two dissimilar or opposite values. The bivalent logic, in this context, is a system that only accepts two truth values for their premises. Therefore the proposition can be false or true, without there being another intermediate possibility.

The proposition “John is alive”, for example, is part of the orbit of bivalent logic since it can only be true or false. A person cannot be “a little bit alive” or “more or less dead. “

The bivalent system par excellence, there are three fundamental principles that support the above:

* Principle of identity: it is true that A is identical to itself (A is equal to A);

* principle of non-contradiction: it is not possible for A to be A and not A in a contemporary way;

* Principle of the excluded third: A is false or true, without a third option.

This is also expressed by means of the bivalence law or semantic principle, which determines that for each declarative type phrase that expresses a given proposition, only one truth value corresponds, be it the true or false proposition.

The concept of truth value, for its part, refers to the degree of truth that we can appreciate in a given statement. In bivalent classical logic, we can only find two truth values, as mentioned in previous paragraphs: one true and one false, which can be grouped into pairs represented by alphanumeric elements such as 1 and 0 or V and F, among others. examples.

In the realm of formal logic, this principle gives rise to a property that is not always present in a semantics. Despite this, it should not be confused with the law of the excluded third party, according to which we always obtain a true value from the logical disjunction of a proposition and its negation; for example, a true value is observed in the phrase “it’s night or it’s not night.” That said, a semantics can satisfy the law of the excluded third, and not that of bivalence.

Philosophical logic relies on the principle of bivalence to study the states of natural language and their truth values. The problem of applying binary logic to statements is particularly difficult for philosophers, especially when they come across phrases that may give rise to more than one interpretation or those that speak of events that are supposed to take place in the future.

A bivalent engine, on the other hand, can run on two kinds of fuel. If a car can run on gasoline and compressed natural gas (CNG), it is a vehicle with a bivalent engine.