News Report

Nov. 2, 1815: Boole Born, Boolean Logic Logically Follows, November 2, 2010 by Dylan Tweney, found on www.wired.com

On November 2, 1815 George Boole was born. He would later go on to be an English mathematician and help create what we know as Boolean logic. Boole was taught at home by his father when he was younger and when he was merely 16 he began working as a schoolteacher. At the age of 24 he was submitting papers to major journals related to linear transformations and differential equations. In 1844 The Royal Society honored him for a paper he wrote about mathematical functions combining calculus and algebra. He later became a fellow of the society in 1857. Despite not having a formal college degree at the age off 33 he became a professor at Queen’s College in Ireland’s County Cork. Despite all of this we mostly know about his work with Boolean logic also known as Boolean algebra. This method reduces all logical problems to symbols. Claude Shannon’s system of using all digits that are either 1 or 0 combined with Boole’s Boolean operators of and, or, and not can be used to solve any mathematical problem. Boolean logic can also be used to make computer programs that can manipulate images and text, process mathematical problems, communicate with other computers, capture images and redisplay them in real time, and store data. However Boole was ahead of his time and the programmability of computers would have to wait till the 20th century to be discovered.
I found this article to be very interesting. I know what Boolean operators are and how to use them but I did not know the history be hide the true inventor of them. I find it very interesting that Boole was so ahead for his time and was able to go so far with such little education.