Background information on George Boole.
George Boole was born in Lincoln in England on November 2nd 1815. He was born at 34 Silver Street which is now occupied by a firm of solicitors. The law of the land usurping the laws of logic?
His father, John Boole, was a shoemaker with a keen interest in science. His main interest being optics. This he passed onto George who enjoyed constructing optical instruments.
As well as optics his father taught him mathematics. His interest in mathematics overtook the usual pursuits of childhood, along with a flair for languages. By 14 George had mastered Latin, Greek, French and German.
By the age of 16 he had become an assistant school teacher and was considering a role in the church. Luckily for the world of computing he then decided to open his own school and started upon the course that would give us the boolean logic that we use today.
In 1854 he published An investigation into the Laws of Thought, on Which are founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities. This simplified logic into an algebraic form and incorporated it into mathematics. This was to be the foundation of the boolean algebra used in a myriad of computer and communications systems today.
Further references.
| Roger p@rsons_world of George Boole | 'The Calculus of Logic' by George Boole |
| Papers of George Boole - Library University College Cork | |
| George Boole, meet Bill Gates: A Look at the History of Computers | |
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