Frederick Methvan Whyte
Frederick Methvan Whyte (March 2, 1865 – 1941 Athens) was a mechanical engineer of Dutch background who worked for the New York Central in the United States. He is most widely known as the person who developed Whyte notation to describe the different wheel arrangements of steam locomotives in 1900.
Propositional formula
Although a propositional calculus originated with Aristotle, the notion of an "algebra" applied to propositions had to wait until the early 19th century. In an (adverse) reaction to the 2000 year tradition of Aristotle's syllogisms, John Locke's "Essay concerning human understanding (1690)" used the word semiotics (theory of the use of symbols). By 1826 Richard Whately had critically analyzed the syllogistic logic with a sympathy toward Locke's semiotics. George Bentham's work (1827) resulted in the notion of "quantification of the predicate" (1827) (nowadays symbolized as ∀ ≡ "for all"). A "row" instigated by William Hamilton over a priority dispute with Augustus De Morgan "inspired George Boole to write up his ideas on logic, and to publish them as MAL [Mathematical Analysis of Logic] in 1847" (Grattin-Guinness and Bornet 1997:xxviii).