George Boole (1815 - 1864)

George Boole ‘The Father of Computer Science’.

George Boole was born in Lincoln, England, the son of a shoemaker and a lady’s maid. He left school at an early age in order to support his family. He taught himself advanced mathematics and in 1841 he introduced Invariant Theory, a new branch of mathematics. The concept of invariance was later part of Einstein’s inspiration for the Theory of Relativity.

George Boole became the first Professor of Mathematics at Queen’s College Cork (now UCC) in 1849. He invented Boolean Algebra basic to the design and operation of the modern computer and electronic hardware responsible for much modern technology. George Boole is known as ‘The Father of Computer Science’. He died in 1864 following a lung infection that set in after he walked to UCC in heavy rain and lectured in wet clothes.

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