page_title: George Boole
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: George Boole / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: George Boole, first professor of Mathematics at Queens College Cork (later UCC) was born on the 2 Nov 1815 in Lincoln, England the eldest son of John Boole and his wife MaryAnn Joyce. He had 3 siblings Maryann (1818 –1887), Charles (1819 –1888) and William (1821 –1902).In 1855 he married Mary Ann Everest and they had 5 children, all daughters Mary Ellen (b. 1856), Margaret (b. 1858), Alice (b. 1860, Lucy (b. 1862) and Ethel (b.1864). Boole died prematurely in 1864 at his home in Ballintemple, Co. Cork aged only 49. He caught a severe chill from walking in the rain, which later turned into a lung infection, causing his death.
context_page_description: George Boole was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher and logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in Ireland. He worked in the fields of differential equations and algebraic logic, and is best known as the author of The Laws of Thought which contains Boolean algebra. Boolean logic is credited with laying the foundations for the information age. Boole maintained that:
  No general method for the solution of questions in the theory of probabilities can be established which does not explicitly recognise, not only the special numerical bases of the science, but also those universal laws of thought which are the basis of all reasoning, and which, whatever they may be as to their essence, are at least mathematical as to their form.
context_section_description: Boole is the namesake of the branch of algebra known as Boolean algebra, as well as the namesake of the lunar crater Boole. The keyword Bool represents a Boolean datatype in many programming languages, though Pascal and Java, among others, both use the full name Boolean. The library, underground lecture theatre complex and the Boole Centre for Research in Informatics at University College Cork are named in his honour. A road called Boole Heights in Bracknell, Berkshire is named after him.
caption: Bust of Boole at University College Cork
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