Is it standard english to always capitalize the word boolean? It's named after George Boole but the concept itself can't be seen as a proper name. The online dictionaries I've searched have been contradictory at best.
I checked with the house brain trust... The response was:
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"ummmmm"
Assumed "Boolean" would be treated the same as "Newtonian" or "Marxsist" or "Gaussian"... Though you Do see it uncapitalized quite a bit.
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Personally, I'd assume most writers need to consult Strunk and white more often... So I decided to consult my Personal Library - See a decade of higher education does have a few benefits:
A Boolean Ring is a ring in which a^2 = a, so named in Honor of the English mathematician George Boole (1815-1864). (Contemp Abstract Algebra, Gallian, 5th ed, 2002, pp 272). - Possesive use of "boolean" is capitalized.
Boolean Algebra, as defined by De Morgan's theorems, is consistently capitalized, again, in the possesive case. (Principles of Electronic Instrumentation, Diefenderfer and Holton, 3rd ed, 1994 pp 248-251)
Again, I find Capitalized in the Possesive case in text discussion of Boolean Rings (Elements of Modern Algebra, Gilbert & Gilbert 4th ed, 1996, pp198, 239)
I checked my Authority on all things math (Mathematical Methods for Physicists, Arfken & Weber, 5th ed, 2001) Which suprisinly didn't cover any directly named consequences of Boole's work. However, every technical term named for someone, either as a noun or possesive (i.e. Laplacian vs Laplace equasion, Hilbert space, Wronskian, Legendre functions, Fourier, Bessel, ect) all were capitalized regardless of usage, as a proper or possesive noun.
Now, by this point I have a 2 piles of old texts about 3 feet high each.. Much to my chagrin the only books that bother with Boolean concepts tend to be senior level abstract algebra or sophmore level electronics and programming. Meaning most of my stack of upper level physics and real analysis books were useless.
And Damnit, I misplaced my copy of the Elements of Style by Strunk and White. When I asked my roomate to bother his copy, he gave me a blank stare.. kids these days. The guy was Suma Cum Laude Business degree a year ago, and he's never heard of Strunk and White. I marvel at what they teach for writing these days.
So, I did manage to did my old technical writing text (Technical Comunication, Markel, 5th ed, 1998) and of course I ended up reading most of Appendix A, can formed a conclusion.
"Boolean" would be considered a proper noun, much like any other technical term named after an individual, i.e. Hertz, Cartesian, Schrodinger, Gaussian, Dirac.
That's the best I got for ya without leaving the house dog. Thanks for providing me with 20 minutes of procrastinating my stars homework due tomorrow.
-Ted
Oh.. Here to explain why "Boolean" is a proper noun.
a "Boolean" is a technical term, mathematical speaking an operator named for George Boole. Due to scientific convention, "named" mathmatical operators always appear as proper nouns.
If this doesn't make sense to you, think of it this way:
Do you capitalize Ferrari, Misubishi Lancer Evolution, Shelby Cobra, Corvette, Toyota Camry. How about less tanglible things like Shadowrun, the Matrix, or Starcraft. Ideas can be given names too ya know. Just proper names under the completely nonjective set of rules of the english language.
And here, I did find a "graduate level" use of "Boolean operators between polygons may be constructed with variants of the Bently-Ottman sweepline algorithm. These Boolean operations are the heart of many CAD/CAM software systems, which, for example, construct complex parts for numerically controlled machining by subtracting one shape from another, joining shapes, slicing away part of a shape, ect., all of which are Boolean operations." (Computational Geometry in C, O'Rourke, 2nd ed, 2000, pp 268)... It kinda jumped out at me when I was reshelving.
Figured you being the programmer would enjoy that reference dude.
Interesting, I never thought of it that way. I thought that the names of products and the like, company brands and such, made sense to be capatolized. I never considered mathamatical concepts to be in the same category.
Cool thanks :)
Well, linguistically speaking, that's my best guess. And I did little research to make the guess sound good.
Your welcome. That damn stack of books has to be useful for something
;)
Hello,
Well, would you capitalize the "E" in Euclidian geometry? Also, the "E" in English is always capitalized (or "capitalised" for our UK friends).
Regards,
Jim Schwartz
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"I move to keep things whole." --Mark Strand
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Gee!