HIZON, Framcheska Jan Mikaela M.

BIOGRAPHY of JOHN VENN

Early Life
John Venn was a British mathematician
and philosopher born on 4th August
1834 in Hull, Yorkshire. His mother died
when he was only three years of age. His
father, who was the rector of parish of
Drypool, was from a distinguished
family. Venn had descended from a long
line of church evangelicals. His early
schooling was done from Highgate and
Islington. He then went to Gonville and
Caius College of Cambridge in 1853
where he got a degree in mathematics in
1857. He became Fellow of the College;
a title he kept for life.
Venn was brought up in a very strict
atmosphere at home. His father Henry
had played a significant part in the
Evangelical movement and he was also
the secretary of the Society for Missions
to Africa and the East. Thus he was
compelled to follow the family tradition.
Venn became a priest in 1859 after being
ordained as a deacon at Ely. He also
went to a town as a curate. However his
thirst for knowledge and passion for
mathematics encouraged him to do more
than this. He therefore moved back to
Cambridge to lecture in moral sciences.

http://www.famous-mathematicians.com/john-venn/

Work
His aptitude for building machines led
him to construct a rare machine. Its
function was to bowl cricket balls. This
machine turned out to be so good and
accurate that once when the Australians
were visiting Cambridge this machine
was used on them. It actually managed to
bowl out one of the top ranked player of
the team four times consecutively.
Venn was very good in the branch of
mathematics we call logic. He has three
textbooks to his name; The Logic of
Chance which was published in 1866,
Symbolic Logic (1881) and The
Principles of Empirical Logic (1889).
The books dealt with frequency
interpretation that is the frequency theory
of probability. The first book had a great
influence on in the theory of statistics
and its development. Symbolic Logic
was the book that gave the introduction
of the Venn diagrams.
Venn Diagrams
John Venn came up with Venn Diagrams
in 1881. They were a representation of
the relation between sets using circles
within circles. For example if we take
three circles A, B and C which are all
subsets of D. The sections which are
overlapping represent similar properties
of the subsets whereas the independent
areas were the individual properties of
the sets. Venn diagrams can be applied in
various problems however they
particularly aided in the Boolean logic
(named after the mathematician George
Boole).

HIZON, Framcheska Jan Mikaela M.

Later Life and Death
Venn was elected as member of the
Royal Society in 1883. He wrote a book
The Biographical History of Gonville
and Cauis College which was published
in 1897. He married Susanna Carnegie
Edmonstone in 1867 with whom he had
one son John Archibald Venn who later
entered the mathematical field. He is
remembered for his immense
contribution to logic. There is a building
named after him at the University of Hull
and a stained glass window in a hall in
the Gonville and Caius College
remembering his work. John Venn died
on 4th April 1923.

http://www.famous-mathematicians.com/john-venn/