Person: Boole (2), Mary Everest
Mary Everest Boole was an English mathematician who was married to George Boole. She wrote a number of books on mathematical education.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- For simplicity, we shall refer to her as Mary Boole throughout this biography.
- Thomas Everest studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1826.
- In 1837 an influenza epidemic swept through England leaving Thomas Everest as an invalid.
- While in France, Mary Boole became bilingual in French and English.
- Mary writes that Deplace was educated in the French school of mathematics.
- "If only she could go to Cambridge and study mathematics she would carry everything before her," he said, "but what could a girl do learning mathematics." Mary was shocked to learn that she could not go to university, she could not study mathematics and she would never meet the famous Charles Babbage.
- Mary Boole could not go to university but she could learn mathematics by teaching herself from books.
- George Everest spent many hours with Mary, encouraging her and telling her about his experiences.
- Indeed, their relationship evolved partly as a consequence of time they spent together devoted to Mary's private tuition, George proving particularly helpful to overcoming her various difficulties with differential calculus.
- When Mary met George Boole she was eighteen years old and he was thirty-five.
- Mary Boole moved back to England where, thanks to Frederick Denison Maurice, she was offered the position as a librarian at Queen's College, London.
- Mary's occupation is given as "Teacher of Mathematics".
- Mary Boole described Hinton as a 'thought-artist'.
- Charles Howard Hinton was a mathematician who wrote "What is the Fourth Dimension?" but, after being convicted of bigamy Charles and Mary Ellen went to Japan and then to the United States.
- Mary's occupation is given, at this time, as "Civil Service Pensioner".
- Mary was described as "living on her own means".
- At the 1901 census Mary Boole was living at 16 Ladbroke Road, Notting Hill, Kensington, London.
- We can think for ourselves, and find out what we want to know." Mary believed that it was possible to express all basic notions of the universe with numbers and symbols.
- Let us now look briefly at some of Mary Boole's publications.
Born 11 March 1832, Wickwar, Gloucestershire, England. Died 17 May 1916, Notting Hill, Kensington, England.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin England, Women
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
