George Boole
One of the founders of symbolic logic, i.e. the logic expressed in terms of algebraic operations. De Morgan and he published their books on symbolic logic almost at the same time in 1847. Boole's Mathematical Analysis of Logic clearly presents his idea that the same symbolic system of algebra can express both Aristotelian syllogism and Stoic propositional logic, if we change the interpretation of symbols. However, his algebraic method was still poor as regards quatification, i.e. the logic of "all" and "some".
Boole also contributed to the algebraic basis of probability theory.
See a biography in MacTuror History of Math.
BACK TO BOOLE PICTURE//BACK TOGALLERY INDEX
