Boolean Logic Explained: From Pub Conversations to George Boole and Modern AI

I was sitting in a pub last week (like you do) and Boolean logic came up.  So, the Boolean expression for this scenario evaluates to True because I was sitting in a pub at that precise moment in time talking about it!  If we wanted to model the general probability of this niche conversation happening in a British pub, we can express it through the following logical conditions:

Chances=(NerdInPub\lor (ExamCram\land \neg LastOrders))\land \neg FootballIsOn\

And if that leaves you a little nonplussed, then maybe some Boolean 101 is in order.  Fear not – BBC Ideas have already imagined that very scenario and prepared the video below to satisfy your curiosity.  It’s a great, straightforward, video – and one of the things I like most about it is that it doesn’t overlook George Boole’s wife, Mary Everest.  Yes, that last name is familiar – the mountain was named for her uncle, Sir George Everest.   Mary helped to edit George’s seminal work The Laws of Thought.  Genius travels, apparently – the Boole’s great-great-grandson, Geoffrey Hinton, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2024 for his work on artificial neural networks.