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Fun fact, Ethel Voynich (Wilfrid's wife) is in fact the daughter of George Boole, who invented Boolean algebra. She was famous in her own right for having writt
by anonymousDan 3y ago
Fun fact, Ethel Voynich (Wilfrid's wife) is in fact the daughter of George Boole, who invented Boolean algebra. She was famous in her own right for having written a novel called 'The Gadfly', which I believe to this day is the best selling novel in Russia. Oh and she was Irish, not English.
- benbreen 3y agoAuthor here. That connection to George Boole and her career as a novelist is what got me interested in the Voyniches in the first place, but then I found so much interesting stuff that I decided to write a series of posts on them. I'm planning on digging more into Ethel's history in a second post in the series. This aspect of her life also seems pretty colorful! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Voynich#Alleged_affair_with_Reilly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Voynich#Alleged_affair_w... Edit: something else I just found digging around is that there's a book called "The Booles and the Hintons" (https://www.amazon.com/Booles-Hintons-Dynasties-Helped-Modern/dp/1782051856 https://www.amazon.com/Booles-Hintons-Dynasties-Helped-Moder...) about the entanglement between the two families through marriage and work. One result of the "Boole-Hinton dynasty" turns out to be Geoffrey Hinton.
- ZoomZoomZoom 3y ago> which I believe to this day is the best selling novel in Russia Not even close. However, it has (had?) been included in the list of compulsory reading in schools for a very long time, so although not every Russian teen has actually read it, most should have at least heard the name of the book and the author.