[歷史] THE GREATNESS OF GEORGE BOOLE
※ [本文轉錄自 Math 看板]
作者: fizeau (.) 看板: Math
標題: [歷史] THE GREATNESS OF GEORGE BOOLE
時間: Sun May 4 01:23:14 2008
http://www.ucc.ie/academic/undersci/pages/sci_georgeboole.htm
George Boole (the Father of Symbolic Logic) was probably the most illustrious
academic who ever worked at University College, Cork (then Queen's College,
Cork). He was not only a mathematical genius but also a fine humanitarian. A
strong minded individual, he was prepared to engage in protracted and bitter
arguments with academic colleagues. His revolutionary advances in mathematics
are today fundamental aspects of computer science and electronics and his
Boolean Algebra is used to design and operate computers and other electronic
devices. The definitive biography of Boole is 'George Boole: His Life and
Work', by Desmond MacHale, (Boole Press, 1985).
George Boole was born in Lincoln, England in 1815. The family economic
circumstances were very modest - his father was a struggling shoemaker and
his mother a lady's maid. His father was also an amateur scientist and
instrument maker, and together with his son made many fine scientific
instruments.
Intellectually, George was a child prodigy. He started school at the age of 1
½. There is a lovely story of how he went missing one day at the age of 2½.
After much searching he was found in downtown Lincoln in the middle of an
excited crowd. Individuals in the crowd were shouting out difficult words to
the child as a spelling test. George was fluently and correctly spelling the
words and being showered with coins in reward.
George was a voracious reader. He had mastered Euclid by age 11, and he
taught himself Greek and Latin, and later French, German and Italian. At the
age of 13 he began a couple of years of secondary education at a small
commercial school.
When George was 16 his father went bankrupt, forcing the boy to withdraw from
formal education in order to work to support the family. All of his further
education was self-taught. He worked as an assistant in several teaching
positions and eventually opened his own school in 1834.
During his teaching career in Lincoln, Boole became deeply involved in social
causes and adult education. He was a founder of The Female Penitents Home
whose function was the rehabilitation of prostitutes. He was also deeply
involved in The Mechanics Institute, whose function was to facilitate poor
people to educate themselves. Public Lectures were given in the Institute,
many by Boole himself. (We therefore felt it appropriate to call our 1995 UCC
Public Lecture Series, to commemorate UCC 150, The Boole Public Lecture
Series).
Boole first became interested in mathematics as a tool to solve mechanical
problems in instrument making. His interest quickly blossomed and he began an
elaborate project of self-education in this area. In 1838 he wrote his first
mathematical paper. In 1841 he founded a new branch of mathematics called
Invariant Theory, later to inspire Einstein. He was awarded the first Gold
Medal of The Royal Society of London in 1844 for a paper on Differential
Equations whose methods are still used today.
But the work that stamped Boole as a mathematical genius was his contribution
to mathematical logic and probability. He may have been motivated here by his
intense religious convictions. At the age of 17 he had a mystic experience in
which he felt God called on him to explain how the mind processes thought. He
decided to do this in a mathematical form, for the Glory of God.
Boole proposed that logical propositions should be expressed as algebraic
equations. The algebraic manipulation of the symbols in the equations
provides a fail-safe method of logical deduction, i.e. logic is reduced to
algebra. Boole replaced the operation of multiplication by the word 'and' and
addition by the word 'or'. The symbols in the equations can stand for
collections of objects (sets) or statements in logic. For example, if x is
the set of all brown cows and y is the set of all fat cows, then x+y is the
set of all cows that are brown or fat, and xy is the set of all cows that are
brown and fat.
Let z = the set of all Irish cows. Then z(x+y) = zx+zy; in other words 'the
set of Irish cows that are either brown or fat is the same as the collection
of cows that are Irish and brown or Irish and fat'.
Boolean algebra provides the basis for analysing the validity of logical
propositions because it captures the two-valued character (binary) of
statements that may be either true or false. Boole had discovered a new kind
of mathematics that would later turn out to be ideal for the manipulation of
information within computers. Also, much of the 'new maths' studied today by
schoolchildren stems from Boole's work.
In 1937, a number of workers noticed that Boole's two valued logic lent
itself to a description of electrical switching circuits. They showed that
the binary numbers (0 and 1), combined through Boolean algebra, could be used
to analyse electrical switching circuits and thus used to design electronic
computers. Today, digital computers and electronic circuits are designed to
implement this binary arithmetic.
As Boole's reputation grew, he became confident enough to apply for
university posts. When the Queen's Colleges were founded in Ireland in 1845
he applied for a Professorship and he was appointed to Queen's College, Cork
(now UCC) in 1849 as Professor of Mathematics. Not bad for a man who had
little or no formal secondary education and no degree.
In 1854 Boole married Mary Everest, niece of Sir George Everest, after whom
the mountain is named. Boole's marriage was very happy and the couple
produced 5 daughters. In addition to his university teaching and research,
Boole was also active in Adult Education in Cork.
By the mid 1850s the fortunes of the university had declined. There was
dissatisfaction amongst the staff with the policies of the College President,
Sir Robert Kane. Boole opposed Kane. He wrote vitriolic letters to the
newspapers complaining about Kane, and Kane replied. A Royal Commission was
set up to investigate affairs. Kane was forced to change his ways, but Boole
was admonished for washing dirty linen in public.
Let me digress briefly to say a word about rows in the academic world. There
is a feeling abroad that such rows are more bitter than are rows in other
professions. I suspect that there is some truth in this, but I have never
worked outside the university, so I cannot be sure. There are several reasons
why quarrels between academics might be particularly bitter. There is some
wisdom in the oft-quoted sneer made by Henry Kissinger - 'University politics
are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small'. Academics in general,
in my experience, are too eager to quarrel amongst themselves and far too
reluctant to stand up for the legitimate interests of the university when
these are attacked by outside bodies. Let me therefore propose an alternative
version of the Kissinger quote - 'Rows amongst academics are so vicious
precisely because they are the only rows they allow themselves'.
Boole wrote his most famous work 'An Investigation of The Laws of Thought' in
Cork. Apart from his famous work on mathematical logic and probability, he
also made notable contribution to the development of calculus. He was awarded
many honourary degrees and awards. In 1857 he was elected a fellow of the
Royal Society of London.
Boole died prematurely in 1864 from pneumonia developed as a result of a
wetting. He is buried in the churchyard of St. Michael's Church of Ireland,
Blackrock, Cork.
A window, The Boole Window, was installed by public subscription in the Aula
Maxima at UCC. Recently the new Boole Library and Boole Lecture Theatre
complex at UCC were named in his honour. However, his most enduring legacy
will be that whenever the subjects of Mathematics, Electronics, Logic,
Information Theory, Cybernetics and Computer Science are taught, his name
will be remembered for his beautiful, simple and universally useful theories.
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