Maths Project - Mathematician

I completed my maths project on the mathematician George Boole. Before starting the project I had never heard about the work and discoveries of George Boole. The project has gotten me to realise that there are lots of mathematicians that are not recognised enough nowadays.

George Boole Essay

George Boole was born on the 2^nd of November in 1815. He grew up in England in a town called Lincoln. His mother Mary was a lady’s maid and his father John had his own business making shoes. The family had little money and they struggled to provide for George and his three siblings. From the beginning the family realised that George was a special child and that he was incredibly smart. At the age of one and a half George began school. It is said that when George was two and a half he went missing one day during school. The family later found him in the town with a large crowd around him. They were all amazed by the way that he was able to spell many difficult words.

As a young boy George would often spend time with his father making scientific instruments. He began to notice that he loved to work out the mechanical problems and his passion for maths began to start. However, George wasn't only good at maths but he also had a great interest in English and languages. He had a great interest in books and by the age of eleven he began teaching himself Latin, Greek, French, German and Italian. By the age of thirteen he began his secondary education already having mastered Euclid. Euclid was a mathematician that focused on geometry and extremely difficult especially for his young age. Unfortunately George had to put his secondary education on hold when his father went bankrupt and therefore had to work to help provide for the family. However, he continued to teach himself the rest of the course for secondary level. 

George became an assistant teacher in order to earn money for the family. During his time working in the he was inspired to open his own school. Therefore in 1834 George opened a new school so that everyone could get an education. His work with the children made him realise that there are many adults that have never had the opportunity to get an education and that he wanted to get more involved with social issues. He began to take action and became the founder of an organisation called The Female Penitents Home, this organisation helped in the rehabilitation of prostitutes. He also go involved in The Mechanics Institute, this group helped provide homeless people with the facilities so that they could educate themselves and start a new life.

George was very religious and at the age of 17 he believed that he was being called by God to completed a very important task. He believed that God was asking him to explain to everyone the processes of thought. George decided that the way that he was going to live out this religious vocation was going to be through maths. By 1838 George wrote his first mathematical paper. He continued to write papers and wrote multiple books such as ‘The Laws of Thought’ and the ‘Mathematical Analysis of Logic’. George discovered his own theory known as Boolean Logic. The way that I understand his theory is that he invented to maths that is now illustrated using Venn Diagrams. His mathematical theories inspired many mathematicians such as Einstein. He then became the first to be awarded a gold medal from the Royal Society of London in 1844 for his paper on differential equations. These methods of his are still used extremely often today, for example his revolutionary advances in maths were fundamental to today’s electronics and computer science. Boolean algebra is nowadays used in the design and operation computers all around the world.

In 1845 at the age of thirty George got a job in Queens College Cork, today known as Cork University. This was an amazing achievement as George had not completed his secondary education and he had no degree. He managed to get the job because of the reputation that he had made for himself throughout his life. During the time that he spent teaching in the college he wrote his most famous book called ‘An Investigation of the Law of Thought’.

While visiting the professor of Greek on the college grounds in 1850 he was introduced to Mary Everest the professors niece and after four years George married her. Mary was the also the niece of the man that Mount Everest was named after. George and Mary had five girls together. Unfortunately Georges life was cut short when he died on the 8^th of December 1864 at the age of 49. The cause of his death was pneumonia due to wetting. This occurred when George went for a two mile walk in the lashing rain then after his walk he had to do a lecture. When he got home he had a fever and cold, his wife figured that you cure an illness the way that you get one. Therefore, she put George into bed and threw a few buckets of cold water on him. Of course this was the wrong thing to do and made him much worse. This process is known as wetting and is the cause of his death. He is buried today in a cemetery in Blackrock. He will always be remembered and the University of Cork have named a room after him, Boole centre for research in informatics. 

George Boole is admired by many mathematicians in the world today, especially because he managed to teach almost everything to himself. However, there were a few mathematicians that did not believe in his theory. A man that had this view was John Maynard Keynes, he was an economist and in 1921 he believed that George had made a fundamental error in his theory. However after many hours of work he noticed that he was wrong and that the theory was valid.