Boole, GEORGE

Boole, GEORGE, a distinguished mathematician and logician, was born at Lincoln, 2d November 1815, and received his education mainly from his father, an intelligent tradesman. He successfully started a school at Lincoln in 1835; devoted his spare time to study, and in 1849 became professor of Mathematics in Queen's College, Cork, a post he held till his death, 8th December 1864. He had long been one of the foremost mathematical thinkers of his time. Among his publications are Analytical Transformations (1839), General Method in Analysis (1844), Mathematical Analysis of Logic (1847), and papers on Probability. His fame as a logician chiefly rests upon his Laws of Thought (1854). It has come to be regarded as a work of great originality and power, and is one of the first attempts at 'the employment of symbolic language and notation in a wide generalisation of purely logical processes.'