George Boole (1815 - 1864)
- One of Queen's College (now UCC) most eminent professors was mathematician George Boole.
A native of Lincoln in England he began his career as an assistant in a school in Lincoln and shortly after
established his own successful educational establishment in the area.
In 1844 Boole was awarded a gold medal by the Royal Society and developed a new branch of mathematics
known as Boolian Algebra, which led eventually to the development of computer science. He began to
submit papers to the Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journals and shortly afterwards published
"The Mathematical Analysis of Logic".
Even though Boole did not hold a primary university degree, he was nevertheless appointed Professor
of Mathematics at Cork in 1854.
Just ten years later, in December 1864, Boole died from pneumonia after walking four miles to the college
from Ballintemple in a rain storm.
Boole is still remembered in UCC today, especially in the Aula Maxima where a large stained-glass window
depicts the great mathematician seated at his writing desk, watched over by Aristotle? Euclid?
He is also invoked in the name of the college's central library, Boole Library.
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