What would George Ball, the developer of Boolean algebra, say about the computing revolution?

Today, November 2, 2015, was the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Boole, whose name we know from Boolean algebra. He tried to translate the way of thinking of the human brain into algorithms of zero and one, with logic that allows to calculate anything using the famous gates (AND, OR, XOR and NOT) that today are in the billions in every average computer or phone

Today, November 2, 2015, was the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Boole, whose name we know from Boolean algebra. He tried to translate the way of thinking of the human brain into algorithms of zero and one, with logic that allows to calculate anything using the famous gates (AND, OR, XOR and NOT) that today are in the billions in every average computer or phone.

George Ball was born in Lincoln, England, to a father who was a shoemaker who struggled for a living. Ball was forced to leave school at the age of 16 and never attended university. He taught himself languages, natural philosophy and mathematics. After his father's business failed he supported the whole family and became a teacher's assistant, eventually opening a boarding school in Lincoln.
Ball began to develop original mathematical research and in 1844 he was awarded the first gold medal for mathematics by the Royal Society. Ball was mainly interested in the idea of ​​expressing the workings of the human brain in symbolic ways, and his two books on the subject The Mathematical Analysis of Logic (1847) and Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854) formed the basis of computer science and electronic circuits. He also made important contributions to areas of mathematics such as the theory of invariants which he founded, differential calculus, differential equations and probability.
Most of the "new mathematics" that is now taught in schools as the basic theory - binary numbers and Boolean algebra, is found in Boll's books.
In 1849 Ball was appointed the head professor of mathematics at Queens University in Ireland (now University College Cork) and he conceived and worked there until his sudden death in 1864.

By codifying thought using an algebraic language, George Ball invented a new kind of mathematics. A century later, Boolean algebra would provide an ideal basis for designing the electronic structure of computers, and manipulating the information within computers.

Could Boll have foreseen such developments before his untimely death in 1864? The practical application of his ideas, and the social utility of computers would surely have pleased Ball. He was a practical scientist, who dedicated his life to 'understanding the thought processes of the human mind', a scientist who always thoroughly tested every idea he came up with before putting it into print, ever since his childhood when he learned mathematics and optics by watching his father calculate the focal length of a lens for a new telescope.
Ball's biographer, Prof. Desmond McHale, believes he sensed the coming revolution. McHale cites a passage from the book of Ball's wife Mary from 1868 where she apparently quotes her late husband: "If I were asked to name the two greatest contributors to humanity that this century has produced, I would have to choose Charles Babbage who developed a machine that performs serial operations and William Stanley 'Bones built the hard-wired machine.

The two proved that calculation and logic, like weaving and plowing, are actions, not for the souls of men, but for a wise combination of iron and wood. If you waste time on a job that a machine can do faster, it should only be done for practice.

George Ball and Charles Babbage

A letter in the Bull Archive written by Joseph Hill records a meeting of Bull with Charles Babbage (1791-1871) at the Great Exhibition of 1862 in London. Among the large machinery exhibits were parts of an analytical engine that Bej had been developing since the 19s. Hill witnessed a conversation between Ball and Bej about the "thinking engine".
Babbage invented the loom-like Analytical Engine (weaving machine) in 1833. It was to be the first general-purpose mechanical computer programmed using loops of punched cards. Some of the Analytical Engines were exhibited in the King George III Museum in London in 1843 but Babbage did not stop modifying the unfinished design.
Despite the meeting, the required connection between Babbage's hardware and Ball's software did not occur. Who knows maybe we would have seen a mechanical analog computer in 1875 and maybe even an electromechanical version at the beginning of the 20th century?

William Stanley Jebbons

Mary Ball's book, cited earlier, also mentions another name, that of William Stanley Jebbons (1835-1882), a logician and economist with whom Ball was in contact in August 1863. Jebbons was an admirer of Ball's symbolic logic but he was not a mathematician. In 1864 he published a short book under the name "Pure Logic" which contained criticism of Bull's system.

Jevons tried to explain the thought processes of breaking down logic into mathematical expressions. According to him, in exaggeration; "The mathematical dress in which [Boll] clothed his discoveries is not worthy of them, and his quasi-mathematical processes are much more complicated than they ought to be."

The correspondence between Bull and Jevons that survives in the archives of the Royal Society in London, shows that Bull was unable to convince Jevons, (who was twenty years younger than him) to understand his point of view.

From 1866 Jevons studied what he called "the universal principle of thinking" and at the same time as the research (which was published in 1869) he built a "reasoning machine" that would automate the logical tapping processes. In 1870, Jevons presented his 'Logical Piano' to the Royal Society. Ironically, this device in which Jevons adopted Boll's ideas is now recognized as the first mechanical computer that solved problems with accuracy and speed that exceeded the human brain. The 'piano of logic' provides a result derived from any given set of premises. The instrument that resembled a 21-key piano is on display today at the Science Museum in Oxford.

It took decades - until in 1937, Howard Aiken, inspired by Babbage's analytical engine, managed to convince IBM to finance the construction of a huge electromechanical computer that could be programmed using punched cards - Mark 1. A year later, Claude Shannon published an article at MIT that dealt with the symbolic analysis of relay and switching circuits Inspired by Bull's work on the symbolic logic that lay like an unturned stone for seventy years.

For a review on the occasion of George Ball's 200th birthday, on the University College Cork website

More of the topic in Hayadan:
Gauss - the prince of mathematicians
Emi Neter, lays the foundation for modern algebra
XNUMXth anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, the inventor of the modern computer