PRESENTATION OUTLINE
George Boole
By:Andre Hayden & Manden Turner
George Boole was born in England in 1815 in Lincoln. Throughout his life he displayed an incredible interest in and mastery over a wide range of topics including maths, logic and philosophy. Boole had very little formal education, making this mastery all the more impressive for being self taught. His abilities were formally acknowledged in 1849 by his appointment as a professor of mathematics in University College Cork where he spent the majority of his life.
Perhaps Boole's most important contribution was in the field of logic. At the time of his birth the field had effectively stagnated since its beginning with Aristotle, remaining completely untouched throughout Roman times, the Dark Ages, the Medieval Period and the Renaissance; a span of more than two thousand years! This reinterpretation of logic is hugely significant as it not only managed to sire modern logic, but computer science as well, meaning most of the technology used today is built on Boole's work.
Despite Boole's extraordinary accomplishments, it would be a crime not to mention the achievements of his equally amazing daughters. Each made significant contributions in their own way, highlights of which include Lucy Everest as the first woman to be made a chemistry professor in England, Alicia Boole-Scott, a mathematician who made major contributions in four dimensional geometry and Ethel Lilian Voynich, an exceptional author best known for The Gadfly. He even had a Granddaughter who worked on the Manhattan Project!
