Gottlob Frege was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician, born in 1848. He is best known for his work in the foundations of mathematics and for developing predicate logic, which laid the groundwork for modern logic. Frege's ideas about language and meaning significantly influenced later philosophers and linguists. Frege's most notable contributions include the distinction between sense and reference, which explores how words relate to the objects they denote. His work, particularly in the book Begriffsschrift, helped establish logic as a formal discipline and paved the way for future thinkers like Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein.