George Boole: His Life and Work: V. 2 (Profiles of genius series)

MacHale, Des

ISBN 10: 0906783054 / ISBN 13: 9780906783054

Published by Boole Press Ltd, 1985

This copy is in very good condition with a good unclipped dust jacket. Some light foxing to the front end paper and top edge of the text block only. Otherwise a very good clean copy. Seller Inventory # 2533016

Synopsis:

This book, aimed at the general reader, is the first full-length biography of George Boole (1815 - 1864) who has been variously described as the founder of pure mathematics, father of computer science and discoverer of symbolic logic. Boole is mostly remembered as a mathematician and logician whose work found application in computer science long after his death, but this biography reveals Boole as much more than a mathematical genius; he was a child prodigy, self-taught linguist and practical scientist, turbulent academic and devoted teacher, social reformer and poet, psychologist and humanitarian, religious thinker and good family man - truly a nineteenth-century polymath. George Boole was born in Lincoln, England, the son of a struggling shoemaker. Boole was forced to leave school at the age of sixteen and never attended a university. He taught himself languages, natural philosophy and mathematics. After his father's business failed he supported the entire family by becoming an assistant teacher, eventually opening his own boarding school in Lincoln. He began to produce original mathematical research and, in 1844, he was awarded the first gold medal for mathematics by the Royal Society. Boole was deeply interested in the idea of expressing the workings of the human mind in symbolic form, and his two books on this subject, The Mathematical Analysis of Logic (1847) and An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854) form the basis of today's computer science and electronic circuitry. He also made important contributions to areas of mathematics such as invariant theory (of which he was the founder), differential and difference equations and probability. Much of the 'new mathematics' now studied by children in school - set theory, binary numbers and Boolean algebra, has its origins in Boole's work. In 1849, Boole was appointed first professor of mathematics in Ireland's new Queen's College (now University College) Cork and taught and worked there until his tragic and premature death in 1864. In 1855, he had married Mary Everest, a niece of the man after whom the world's highest mountain is named. The Boole's had five remarkable daughters including Alicia, a mathematician, Lucy, a professor of chemistry, and Ethel (Voynich), a novelist and author of The Gadfly.

Review: MacHale's book is a major achievement and deserves to be a bestseller --Times Higher Education Supplement

Well researched and written, the book can be thoroughly recommended --The Irish Times

Boole has been fortunate in finding a biographer of the calibre of Dr MacHale --The Irish Examiner

Well researched and written, the book can be thoroughly recommended --The Irish Times

Boole has been fortunate in finding a biographer of the calibre of Dr MacHale --The Irish Examiner

Bibliographic Details

Title: George Boole: His Life and Work: V. 2 (...
Publisher: Boole Press Ltd
Publication Date: 1985
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Good
Edition: 1st Edition