Sarah Dry on the legacy of ISAAC NEWTON
When Newton died in 1727 without a will, he left a wealth of papers that gave his followers and his family a deep sense of unease. Some of what they contained was wildly heretical and alchemically obsessed; deemed ‘unfit to be printed’, they remained largely hidden for more than seven generations. Over time Newton has been made and re‑made but in her book THE NEWTON PAPERS Sarah helps uncover the truth about this extraordinary man.
Sarah is a former research fellow at the LSE and author of Curie: A Life and The Newton Papers: The Strange and Ture Odyssey of Isaac Newton’s Manuscripts.
Professor Desmond MacHale on the life and work of GEORGE BOOLE
George Boole (1815‑64) has been variously described as the founder of pure mathematics, father of computer science and discoverer of symbolic logic but he was much more than a mathematical genius.
A child prodigy and 19th century polymath, he was a practical scientist and self‑taught linguist, turbulent academic and devoted teacher, social reformer and poet, philosopher and family man.
Des MacHale is the author of over 60 books (including humour and film) and Emeritus Professor Mathematics at University College Cork, where Boole was the first professor of mathematics.
