George Boole.

English Mathematician
1815–1864

George Boole was a mathematician whose work in symbolic logic laid new foundations for modern algebra, and set the stage for contemporary computer circuitry and database search strategy syntax. Boole was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1815, and he died December 8, 1864, in County Cork, Ireland. He received little in the way of formal education, but he was a dedicated reader and self-taught student of languages and mathematics.

At the age of sixteen, Boole became an assistant teacher for elementary school students. By age twenty, Boole had started his own school. Dismayed at what he considered to be inadequate materials available to teach mathematics to young students, Boole undertook the serious study of mathematics on his own. In subsequent years he wrote several seminal papers on the relationship between logic and mathematics. Despite his lack of university training and connections, he managed...