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Article: Boole, George
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Boole, George
British Mathematician 1815
–
1864
Digital logic
is the set of rules applied to data (numbers, symbols, words) that are entered into a computer. These instructions direct computers and are called
machine code
. This code uses the
binary
digits 1 and 0 to switch
transistors
on or off. The basic operators that perform these tasks are AND, OR, and NOT. A hundred years before electronic computers were conceived, George Boole proposed this binary or digital logic.
Born to working-class English parents, Boole later supported himself and his parents as a school instructor. Frustrated by the inferior mathematics texts used to educate pupils, Boole was led to change ...