Introduction
Almost everybody who has reached high school has heard of the mathematician George Boole, the man responsible for creating Boolean Algebra. He created a system of mathematics that was useless at the time, but now is a very important branch in the "information age", as it is used to program computers.
Basic Information
George Boole was born November 2, 1815 in Lincoln, England, and he died December 8, 1848 in Ballintemple, Ireland in 1864. Like most people at the time, he first started to learn mathematics from his father, John Boole. George Boole also was largely self-taught. His favourite subject was classics, rather than mathematics. The inventor of Boolean algebra began teaching when he was only 16 years old, as heneeded to help support his family. Later in his life, he started a school in his hometown Lincoln, and then he moved on to become the first math professor at the Queen's College in Cork, even though he had never actually attended university himelf.
Published Papers/Notable Achievements
If you are to be recognized in the fields of mathematics and science, you must publish papers. George Boole published many papers, and his first was the "Theory of Analytical Transformations". George Boole only published two treatises in his lifetime. He published the "Treatise on Differential Equations" in 1859, and the "Treatise on the Calculus of Finite Differences" in 1860. A notable achievement is that he won a gold medal for mathematics in 1844 when he was only 29 years old, from the British Royal Society. He even wrote a book entitled "The Laws of Thought", and it was published in 1854. George Boole is also the author of many papers that I have not mentioned here.
Basic Idea of Boolean Algebra
At the beginning of George Boole's time, logic was a thing that was studied by philosophers. George Boole did most of his work to show that logic should be studied by mathematicians instead. He did this by describing logical principles in equations with symbols, instead of words. This field that he founded is known as symbolic logic. George Boole then invented the discipline of mathematics called Boolean Algebra. Now, this is not only used in circuitry in things like computers for binary circuits, but also in telephone wiring. Boolean Algebra separates everything into objects and assigns it a property, and can describe all the objects together with the presence or absence of that property. In circuitry, that property is either ON or OFF.
Mathematical Equation
As taken from his paper, The Calculus of Logic, here is the General Solution of Elective Equations:
(1)Bibliography
Works Cited
"Boole, George." Compton's by Britannica. ELibrary. TVDSB, St. Thomas. 26 Feb. 2008. Keyword: George Boole.
Boole, George. "The Calculus of Logic." Crumpled. 26 Feb. 2008 <http://www.crumpled.com/cp/classics/boole.html>.
"George Boole." Boolean Society. 26 Feb. 2008 <http://www.boolean.org.uk/gb.htm>.
"George Boole." Wikipedia. Oct. 2007. 26 Feb. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole>.
Hey Mike, another well written report. Umm I'm really not sure why but Your page has no formatting whatsoever, all the format marks have been changed into their text form…maybe it's my internet..but Kiefers page looked fine so I'm not really sure. Same thing with your Formula(I think thats what the numbers and letters all jumbled together at the end are supposed to be) and your Image..well..It's not there..and why does everyone forget the comment box?? how am I suppose to do my part if you don't do yours?? So basically I liked your report, and tried to visualize it with the formatting but you're going to need to fix it before Mr. Laxon marks it. I'm glad you used four sources because wikipedia is an arguable "reliable" source (like I told Kiefer) here is some other reading that you may find interesting:
The Calculus of Logic
and
www.science.ie
Mike, the information on George Boole is well done, but as Jake said, there is no formatting at all with this page. One helpful idea might be to go look at other people's assignments and follow their guidline with the codes. Also, there is no picture of Boole, so you might want to add one of those onto this page.
Mike I liked the use of the bold text in the second paragraph. The problems you had with the headings can simply solved by adding a space between the "+" and the words(s) in the heading. And a picture would be a good addition.
Good information Mike. It is interesting that he came up with boolean algebra. It is such an important part of computer math and programming. However, formatting the page would make it much easier to comprehend.