George Boole - 1815 - 1864. George Boole was the mathematician who invented the branch of mathematics that would come to be named after him (Boolean Algebra). This is the basis for all of the logic circuits that make up all the computers we use today. The device you used today to reach this geocache is built on the mathematics invented by George Boole.
George Boole (the Father of Symbolic Logic) was probably the most illustrious academic who ever worked at University College, Cork (then Queen's College, Cork). He was not only a mathematical genius but also a fine humanitarian. A strong-minded individual, he was prepared to engage in protracted and bitter arguments with academic colleagues. His revolutionary advances in mathematics are today fundamental aspects of computer science and electronics and his Boolean Algebra is used to design and operate computers and other electronic devices. The definitive biography of Boole is 'George Boole: His Life and Work', by Desmond MacHale, (Boole Press, 1985).
In 1937, a number of workers noticed that Boole's two valued logic lent itself to a description of electrical switching circuits. They showed that the binary numbers (0 and 1), combined through Boolean algebra, could be used to analyse electrical switching circuits and thus used to design electronic computers. Today, digital computers and electronic circuits are designed to implement this binary arithmetic.
Boole wrote his most famous work 'An Investigation of The Laws of Thought' in Cork. Apart from his famous work on mathematical logic and probability, he also made notable contribution to the development of calculus. He was awarded many honourary degrees and awards. In 1857 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London.
Boole died prematurely in 1864 from pneumonia developed as a result of a wetting. His wife was Mary Everest - the niece of Sir George Everest after whom the mountain is named.
His grave is in the adjacent graveyard and is located to the left of the Church and faces east.
Parking at the site is limited and it is safer to park at either the Blackrock Road at the nearby petrol station or on Church road (about 300m to the south).