BOOLE, George (1815-1864). An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, on which are founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities. London: Macmillan & Co., 1854.

8vo. (Neat early numeral on title and a few pencil marks, without publisher’s advertisements at end.) Modern quarter calf antique.

THE FIRST EDITION OF BOOLE'S GREAT WORK ON MATHEMATICAL LOGIC—A MAJOR CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY. Probable second issue, with the title, L2 and Q8 cancels, the errata leaf is the last leaf of preliminaries, and there is an additional “Note” leaf inserted before the errata (this latter not in the Norman collation).

"Boole invented the first practical system of logic in algebraic form, which enabled more advances in logic to be made in the decades of the nineteenth century than in the twenty-two centuries preceding. Boole's work led to the creation of set theory and probability theory in mathematics, to the philosophical work of Peirce, Russell, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein, and to computer technology via the master's thesis of Claude Shannon, who recognized that the true/false values in Boole's two-valued logic were analogous to the open and closed states of electric circuits. This invention of the binary digit or ‘bit’ made possible the development of the digital computer" (Norman).

Norman 266; Origins of Cyberspace 224; Tomash & Williams B198.

BOOLE, George (1815-1864). An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, on which are founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities. London: Macmillan & Co., 1854.