The English mathematician George Boole (1815-1864) invented mathematical, or symbolic, logic and uncovered the algebraic structure of deductive logic, thereby reducing it to a branch of mathematics.

George Boole was born on Nov. 2, 1815, in Lincoln. He attended a primary school of the National Society and then a school for commercial subjects. This was the last of his formal schooling but not the end of his education, for he inherited a talent for self-study from his father, a shoemaker by trade but a philosopher by inclination. At the age of 16 young Boole became an assistant teacher in an elementary school. Four years later he opened his own school.

Meanwhile he had discovered mathematics. Disgusted with the poor quality of the texts that his students had to use, Boole began to study the works of the great mathematicians. Without guidance he mastered these books and was producing original mathematics by...