George Boole was born in Lincoln, England on the 2nd of November 1815. His father had a love for mathematics and he taught George his knowledge. By the age of eight, George wanted to know more than what his father could teach him. A family friend taught him Latin and by the time he was 12, he could translate texts in Latin. Soon he was fluent in German, Italian, and French. When he was sixteen he became an assistant teacher and then by the time he was 20, he had opened his own school. Soon George published his first paper (Researches on the Theory of Analytical Transformations) at age 24. Very soon he saw that he could apply his algebra to solve logical problems. In his 1847 work, The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, he argued that logic was mathematics, and not philosophy. This paper won him some respect from others of the same opinion and it also earned him a place in faculty of Ireland’s Queen’s College (now called University College Dublin).
Now that he was free of running his school, he worked harder and in greater detail on his theory. He was determined to find a way to solve logical problems mathematically. He then came up with what could be called some sort of linguistic algebra, and the three most basic operations he had was AND, OR, and NOT. Boole’s system was only on a binary approach, meaning there were only two objects processed (yes-no, true-false, zero-one). Considering his stature, his idea was mostly either criticised or completely ignored. However, Charles Sanders Pierce liked the idea and twelve years after Boole had published it, Pierce gave a brief speech about it and then got to work to expand it, realising the potential use it had in electronic circuitry. He eventually designed an electric logical circuit. He never actually built his circuit, but he integrated ‘Boolean’ algebra into his university logic philosophy classes. Eventually, one of his students, Claude Shannon, liked the idea and continued it.

George Boole published many other papers regarding other subjects, but he is most known for the boolean algebra. Unfortunately, he died unexpectedly on the 8th of December 1864, at the age of 49. He had walked in the rain for a long time to arrive to his class on time. He then lectured in his wet clothes and he died of a harsh cold. Boolean algebra is still used today in electronic circuits.

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