A standard way of describing mathematical objects designed to make it easier to compare such objects. The issue arises where a given mathematical value can be written in many different ways. For example, the order in which elements of a set of numbers are listed is not important as far as the mathematical meaning is concerned, but listing them in numeric order makes it much easier to compare two large sets to see if they are the same. In Boolean algebra there are a number of possible canonical forms. For example, any Boolean algebra expression can be written as the logical-or of a collection of minterms, or alternatively as the logical-and of a collection of maxterms.