-
Period: to
Early life
Boolean was born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England, the son of John Boole Sr (1779-1848), a shoemaker and Mary Ann Joyce He had a primary school education, and he had little further formal and academic teaching. William Brooke, a bookseller in Lincoln, may have helped her with Latin, which he may have studied at Thomas Bainbridge. -
Period: to
George Boole
George Boole (/ˈbuːl/; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was an English mathematician, educator, philosopher and logician. He worked in the fields of differential equations and algebraic logic, and is best known as the author of The Laws of Thought (1854) which contains Boolean algebra -
Period: to
Life youth
He was self-taught in modern languages. In fact, when a local newspaper printed his translation of a Latin poem, a scholar accused him of plagiarism under the pretense that he was not capable of such achievements. At age 16, Boole became the breadwinner for his parents and three younger siblings, taking up a junior teaching position in Doncaster at Heigham's School. He taught briefly in Liverpool. -
Period: to
Greyfriars
Boole participated in the Mechanics Institute, in the Greyfriars, Lincoln, which was founded in 1833. Edward Bromhead, who knew John Boole through the institution, helped George Boole with mathematics books and he was given the calculus text of Sylvestre François Lacroix by the Rev. George Stevens Dickson of St Swithin's, Lincoln. Without a teacher, it took him many years to master calculus. -
Period: to
Lincoln Topographical Society
At age 19, Boole successfully established his own school in Lincoln. Four years later he took over Hall's Academy in Waddington, outside Lincoln, following the death of Robert Hall. In 1840 he moved back to Lincoln, where he ran a boarding school. Boole immediately became involved in the Lincoln Topographical Society, serving as a member of the committee, and presenting a paper entitled, -
Period: to
Research papers.
From 1838 onwards Boole was making contacts with sympathetic British academic mathematicians and reading more widely. He studied algebra in the form of symbolic methods, as far as these were understood at the time, and began to publish research papers. -
Period: to
Building society
Boole became a prominent local figure, an admirer of John Kaye, the bishop.He took part in the local campaign for early closing. With E. R. Larken and others he set up a building society in 1847. He associated also with the Chartist Thomas Cooper, whose wife was a relation. -
Period: to
first published paper
Boole's first published paper was Researches in the theory of analytical transformations, with a special application to the reduction of the general equation of the second order, printed in the Cambridge Mathematical Journal in February 1840 (Volume 2, no. 8, pp. 64–73), and it led to a friendship between Boole and Duncan Farquharson Gregory, the editor of the journal. His works are in about 50 articles and a few separate publications. -
Period: to
Influential paper
In 1841 Boole published an influential paper in early invariant theory. He received a medal from the Royal Society for his memoir of 1844, On A General Method of Analysis. It was a contribution to the theory of linear differential equations, moving from the case of constant coefficients on which he had already published, to variable coefficients. The innovation in operational methods is to admit that operations may not commute. -
Period: to
Mathematical Analysis of Logic
In 1847 Boole published the pamphlet Mathematical Analysis of Logic. He later regarded it as a flawed exposition of his logical system, and wanted An Investigation of the Laws of Thought on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities to be seen as the mature statement of his views. -
Period: to
Probability theory
The second part of the Laws of Thought contained a corresponding attempt to discover a general method in probabilities. Here the goal was algorithmic: from the given probabilities of any system of events, to determine the consequent probability of any other event logically connected with those events -
Period: to
Professor at Cork
Boole's status as mathematician was recognised by his appointment in 1849 as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork (now University College Cork (UCC)) in Ireland. He met his future wife, Mary Everest, there in 1850 while she was visiting her uncle John Ryall who was Professor of Greek. They married some years later in 1855.He maintained his ties with Lincoln, working there with E. R. Larken in a campaign to reduce prostitution. -
Period: to
Honours and awards
Boole was awarded the Keith Medal by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1855 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1857. He received honorary degrees of LL.D. from the University of Dublin and the University of Oxford. -
Period: to
Differential equations
Boole completed two systematic treatises on mathematical subjects during his lifetime. The Treatise on Differential Equations appeared in 1859, and was followed, the next year, by a Treatise on the Calculus of Finite Differences, a sequel to the former work. -
Period: to
Death
In late November 1864, Boole walked, in heavy rain, from his home at Lichfield Cottage in Ballintemplle to the university, a distance of three miles, and lectured wearing his wet clothes.He soon became ill, developing pneumonia Boole's condition worsened and on 8 December 1864, he died of fever-induced pleural effusion.He was buried in the Church of Ireland cemetery of St Michael's, Church Road, Blackrock . There is a commemorative plaque inside the adjoining church -
Legacy
Boolean algebra is named after him, as is the crater Boole on the Moon. The keyword Bool represents a Boolean datatype in many programming languages, though Pascal and Java, among others, both use the full name Boolean.[42] The library, underground lecture theatre complex and the Boole Centre for Research in Informatics[43] at University College Cork are named in his honour. A road called Boole Heights in Bracknell, Berkshire is named after him.