Charles Babbage was an English mathematician whose
“analytical engine,” the first machine for computing mathematical
problems,was the forerunner of today’s electronic computers.
Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Science 2.0
Charles Babbage was an English mathematician whose
“analytical engine,” the first machine for computing mathematical
problems,was the forerunner of today’s electronic computers.
Life and Career
Charles Babbage was born in Totnes, England, on 26 December 1791.
He was privately tutored, but went to the University of Cambridge in 1810 to study mathematics. Babbage was an eminent figure in the British scientific revival of the early 19th century. He was a founder member of the Royal Astronomical Society, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and the Statistical Society of London, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1816.
While assisting the astronomer Sir John Herschel (1792–1871) with astronomical computations, Babbage realized that there were many errors in the mathematical tables they were using. Since the tables were prepared by a routine procedure, he thought it should be possible to compute them mechanically, and spent the rest of his life trying to construct the calculating machines that he designed. Unfortunately, his designs were far in advance of the capabilities of contemporary technology. Babbage died on 18 October 1871.
The Difference Engine
During the period from about 1822–33, Babbage concentrated on his “difference engine,” which was designed to calculate tables of navigational and other data. Babbage tried to build an advanced version of his design, but never completed it. Many of the carefully made parts were sold for scrap. In 1854, a Swede, Pehr Georg Scheutz, built a simpler version, which worked and was bought by the Dudley Observatory, Albany, New York, USA. It is now in the Smithsonian Institution.
The Analytical Engine
Babbage later turned to the design of his “analytical engine.” Taking ideas from the design of the Jacquard loom, Babbage conceived of a central processing unit, which would take numbers from a store and operate on them in accordance with a program recorded on punched cards. Unlike the special-purpose difference engine,this machine would have carried out any calculation it was programmed for. Babbage never completed his engine, which clearly foreshadowed the electronic computers built 75 years after his death.
In 1990, the difference engine was completed to Babbage’s designs at the Science Museum, South Kensington, London, England. In 1991, on the 200th anniversary of Babbage’s birth, it performedits first full-scale calculation, and has worked perfectly ever since.
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1994-95, 1997-98 Dorling Kindersley