George Boole

George Boole Bicentenary Links

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Remembering Boole Day
With Boole, #Boole and @GeorgeBoole200 trending in Ireland and the world at various points yesterday, it’s no surprise there were a lot of links being shared. If 1 is the universe and 0 is nothing, this list is closer to 0 than 1: there is a lot more on @georgeboole200, @boole2school and @UCC.

The site GeorgeBoole.com was set up last year by UCC and contains a wide range of information about Boole and the development of boolean algebra. Do you know there is a crater on the Moon named after Boole? That and more here.

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Boolean Expressions (exhibition), UCC’s Lewis Glucksmann Gallery, opens Friday, 24 July 2015 at 3pm

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Mel Bochner, Study for Axion of Associations, 1973 (c) UCC, All Rights Reserved
Mel Bochner, Study for Axion of Associations, 1973
Image courtesy UCC. All rights reserved

Boolean Expressions: Contemporary art and mathematical data, a new exhibition investigating how artists have used logic and technology, at UCC’s Lewis Glucksman Gallery this Friday, July 24. It will be opened at 3pm by Lord David Putman. The exhibition, which runs until 8 November, is accompanied by an extensive programme of curated events, talks, art courses and workshops (see the brochure here.)

What is beauty? Irish philosophers have given many different answers. Berkeley suggested beauty was recognised by judgement and that a thing was “perfect in its kind when it answers the end for which it was made.” (Alciphron, p. 129). For Hutcheson, we have an innate sense that recognises beauty: where “there is Uniformity amidst Variety” (An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, I. II. § III). For Hutcheson, theorems could have beauty (I. III.), an idea that might have appealed to Boole.

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Root and STEM

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Taming the Electric Fluids (c) PhotoAtelier/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Taming the Electric Fluids
(c) PhotoAtelier/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

In the general consciousness, philosophy is more associated with the arts than with science. The nesting of philosophy under “literature” in the Oxford Reference timeline tool is one example. In the case of Irish philosophy it’s understandable given great writers such as Swift, Wilde and Yeats fit into the category of Irish philosopher. But Irish philosophy (as all philosophy) also includes people who are interested in the natural world, mathematics and technology.

AE wrote in 1925 (Irish Statesman): “Ireland has not only the unique Gaelic tradition, but it has also given birth, if it accepts all of its children, to many men who have influenced European culture and science, Berkeley, Swift, Goldsmith, Burke, Sheridan, Moore, Hamilton, Kelvin, Tyndall, Shaw, Yeats, Synge and many others of international repute.” Four of those names unequivocally played a role in the history of STEM. Three of those were also philosophers.

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George Boole 200 Inaugural Lectures, UCC, 5th Feb 2015, 6-9 pm

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There will be a number of lectures to commemorate the George Boole Bicentenary. The first addressed George Boole’s legacy and is now available to watch online here. Introduced by Desmond MacHale (Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at UCC and author of Boole’s biography), this lecture will be given by Professor Muffy Calder OBE (University of Glasgow) … Read more

Forgotten Genius: George Boole

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A five minute documentary on George Boole, creator of Boolean algebra and forefather of the digital age. The memorials mentioned are those in Lincoln where Boole was born. Click here for the Lincoln Boole Foundation, who encourage citizens of Lincoln and the world to celebrate George Boole’s digital legacy -especially in 2014 & 2015, his binary bicentenary.

Also see UCC’s commemoration here.

Ones and Zeros: the life and work of George Boole

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Mathematician and logician George Boole died 150 years ago today, on 8th December, 1864. Today also marks the start of the year-long schedule of events UCC are running to commemorate Boole, culminating in the bicentenary of his birth on 2nd November 2015 (see GeorgeBoole.com for more).

George Boole was born in Lincoln, the eldest son in a family of modest means. For details of his life as a self-taught mathematician to first professor in UCC (then Queens College Cork) in 1849, where he lived until his death see the detailed biography here.

Boole had a large impact on mathematics, providing the basis for invariant theory, and working on differential and difference equations, and probability. Developments of his work such as set theory and boolean algebra are taught to school children today.

However, of most interest philosophically are The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, and its successor An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, on which are founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities published in 1854. These proposed that ideas expressed in language can be expressed in algebraic form. This combination of philosophical logic and algebra, as DeMorgan said “would not have been believed until it was proved.”

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George Boole 200 (UCC)

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This video gives a brief introduction to the importance of George Boole, who will be the subject of a year of celebration in UCC next year, 2015. George Boole’s major achievement was Boolean Algebra, a major development in logic, which Frege later built on.

For Boole’s life and his contribution to the digital age, see this video Forgotten Genius: George Boole (YouTube), and for his place in philosophy Logic –The Structure of Reason Great Ideas of Philosophy (YouTube) (Boole is featured from 15:43 to 17:42). A biography of Boole is here.