Charles BabbageKHFRS (/ˈbæbɪdʒ/; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an Englishpolymath.[1] A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer.[2]
Babbage is considered by some to merit the title of "father of the computer".[2][3][4][5] He is credited with inventing the firstmechanical computer, thedifference engine, that eventually led to more complex electronic designs, though all the essential ideas of modern computers are to be found in hisanalytical engine, programmed using a principle openly borrowed from theJacquard loom.[2][6] As part of his computer work, he also designed the firstcomputer printers.[7] He had a broad range of interests in addition to his work on computers, covered in his 1832 bookEconomy of Manufactures and Machinery.[8] He was an important figure in the social scene in London, and is credited with importing the "scientific soirée" from France with his well-attendedSaturday evening soirées.[9][10] His varied work in other fields has led him to be described as "pre-eminent" among the many polymaths of his century.[1]
Babbage, who died before the complete successful engineering of many of his designs, including his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine, remained a prominent figure in the ideating of computing. Parts of his incomplete mechanisms are on display in theScience Museum in London. In 1991, a functioning difference engine was constructed from the original plans. Built totolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked.
His date of birth was given in his obituary inThe Times as 26 December 1792; but then a nephew wrote to say that Babbage was born one year earlier, in 1791. The parish register ofSt. Mary's,Newington, London, shows that Babbage wasbaptised on 6 January 1792, supporting a birth year of 1791.[13][14][15]
Babbage was one of four children of Benjamin Babbage and Betsy Plumleigh Teape. His father was a banking partner ofWilliam Praed in founding Praed's & Co. ofFleet Street, London, in 1801.[16] In 1808, the Babbage family moved into the old Rowdens house inEast Teignmouth. Around the age of eight, Babbage was sent to a country school inAlphington near Exeter to recover from a life-threatening fever. For a short time, he attendedKing Edward VI Grammar School inTotnes, South Devon, but his health forced him back to private tutors for a time.[17]
Babbage then joined the 30-student Holmwood Academy, in Baker Street,Enfield,Middlesex, under the Reverend Stephen Freeman.[18] The academy had a library that prompted Babbage's love of mathematics. He studied with two more private tutors after leaving the academy. The first was a clergyman nearCambridge; through him Babbage encounteredCharles Simeon and his evangelical followers, but the tuition was not what he needed.[19] He was brought home, to study at the Totnes school: this was at age 16 or 17.[20] The second was anOxford tutor, under whom Babbage reached a level in Classics sufficient to be accepted by theUniversity of Cambridge.
Babbage,John Herschel,George Peacock, and several other friends formed theAnalytical Society in 1812; they were also close toEdward Ryan.[23] As a student, Babbage was also a member of other societies such asThe Ghost Club, concerned with investigating supernatural phenomena, and the Extractors Club, dedicated to liberating its members from the madhouse, should any be committed to one.[24][25]
In 1812, Babbage transferred toPeterhouse, Cambridge.[21] He was the top mathematician there, but did not graduate with honours. He instead received a degree without examination in 1814. He had defended a thesis that was considered blasphemous in the preliminary public disputation, but it is not known whether this fact is related to his not sitting the examination.[11]
Babbage purchased the actuarial tables ofGeorge Barrett, who died in 1821 leaving unpublished work, and surveyed the field in 1826 inComparative View of the Various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives.[33] This interest followed a project to set up an insurance company, prompted byFrancis Baily and mooted in 1824, but not carried out.[34] Babbage did calculate actuarial tables for that scheme, usingEquitable Society mortality data from 1762 onwards.[35]
During this whole period, Babbage depended awkwardly on his father's support, given his father's attitude to his early marriage, of 1814: he and Edward Ryan wedded the Whitmore sisters. He made a home inMarylebone in London and established a large family.[36] On his father's death in 1827, Babbage inherited a large estate (value around £100,000, equivalent to £10.9 million or $15 million today), making him independently wealthy.[11] After his wife's death in the same year he spent time travelling. In Italy he metLeopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, foreshadowing a later visit toPiedmont.[26] In April 1828 he was in Rome, and relying on Herschel to manage the difference engine project, when he heard that he had become a professor at Cambridge, a position he had three times failed to obtain (in 1820, 1823 and 1826).[37]
Babbage was instrumental in founding theRoyal Astronomical Society in 1820, initially known as the Astronomical Society of London.[38] Its original aims were to reduce astronomical calculations to a more standard form, and to circulate data.[39] These directions were closely connected with Babbage's ideas on computation, and in 1824 he won itsGold Medal, cited "for his invention of an engine for calculatingmathematical andastronomical tables".[40]
Babbage's motivation to overcome errors in tables by mechanisation had been a commonplace sinceDionysius Lardner wrote about it in 1834 in theEdinburgh Review (under Babbage's guidance).[41][42] The context of these developments is still debated. Babbage's own account of the origin of the difference engine begins with the Astronomical Society's wish to improveThe Nautical Almanac. Babbage and Herschel were asked to oversee a trial project, to recalculate some part of those tables. With the results to hand, discrepancies were found. This was in 1821 or 1822, and was the occasion on which Babbage formulated his idea for mechanical computation.[43] The issue of theNautical Almanac is now described as a legacy of a polarisation in British science caused by attitudes toSir Joseph Banks, who had died in 1820.[44]
Babbage studied the requirements to establish a modernpostal system, with his friendThomas Frederick Colby, concluding there should be a uniform rate that was put into effect with the introduction of theUniform Fourpenny Post supplanted by theUniform Penny Post[45] in 1839 and 1840. Colby was another of the founding group of the Society.[46] He was also in charge of theSurvey of Ireland. Herschel and Babbage were present at a celebrated operation of that survey, the remeasuring of theLough Foyle baseline.[47]
The Analytical Society had initially been no more than an undergraduate provocation. During this period it had some more substantial achievements. In 1816, Babbage, Herschel and Peacock published a translation from French of the lectures ofSylvestre Lacroix, which was then the state-of-the-art calculus textbook.[48]
Reference toLagrange in calculus terms marks out the application of what are now calledformal power series. British mathematicians had used them from about 1730 to 1760. As re-introduced, they were not simply applied as notations indifferential calculus. They opened up the fields offunctional equations (including thedifference equations fundamental to the difference engine) and operator (D-module) methods fordifferential equations. The analogy of difference and differential equations was notationally changing Δ to D, as a "finite" difference becomes "infinitesimal". These symbolic directions became popular, asoperational calculus, and pushed to the point of diminishing returns. TheCauchy concept of limit was kept at bay.[49] Woodhouse had already founded this second "British Lagrangian School" with its treatment ofTaylor series as formal.[50]
In this contextfunction composition is complicated to express, because thechain rule is not simply applied to second and higher derivatives. This matter was known to Woodhouse by 1803, who took fromLouis François Antoine Arbogast what is now calledFaà di Bruno's formula. In essence it was known toAbraham De Moivre (1697). Herschel found the method impressive, Babbage knew of it, and it was later noted byAda Lovelace as compatible with the analytical engine.[51] In the period to 1820 Babbage worked intensively on functional equations in general, and resisted both conventionalfinite differences and Arbogast's approach (in which Δ and D were related by the simple additive case of theexponential map). But via Herschel he was influenced by Arbogast's ideas in the matter ofiteration, i.e. composing a function with itself, possibly many times.[50] Writing in a major paper on functional equations in thePhilosophical Transactions (1815/6), Babbage said his starting point was work ofGaspard Monge.[52]
From 1828 to 1839, Babbage wasLucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Not a conventional residentdon, and inattentive to his teaching responsibilities, he wrote three topical books during this period of his life. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1832.[53] Babbage was out of sympathy with colleagues:George Biddell Airy, his predecessor as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge,[54] thought an issue should be made of his lack of interest in lecturing. Babbage planned to lecture in 1831 onpolitical economy. Babbage's reforming direction looked to seeuniversity education more inclusive, universities doing more for research, a broader syllabus and more interest in applications; butWilliam Whewell found the programme unacceptable. A controversy Babbage had withRichard Jones lasted for six years.[55] He never did give a lecture.[56]
It was during this period that Babbage tried to enter politics.Simon Schaffer writes that his views of the 1830s includeddisestablishment of theChurch of England, a broaderpolitical franchise, and inclusion of manufacturers as stakeholders.[57] He twice stood for Parliament as a candidate for the borough ofFinsbury. In 1832 he came in third among five candidates, missing out by some 500 votes in the two-member constituency when two other reformist candidates,Thomas Wakley and Christopher Temple, split the vote.[58][59] In his memoirs Babbage related how this election brought him the friendship ofSamuel Rogers: his brother Henry Rogers wished to support Babbage again, but died within days.[60] In 1834 Babbage finished last among four.[61][62][63] In 1832, Babbage, Herschel and Ivory were appointed Knights of theRoyal Guelphic Order, however they were not subsequently madeknights bachelor to entitle them to the prefixSir, which often came with appointments to that foreign order (though Herschel was later created abaronet).[64]
Babbage now emerged as apolemicist. One of his biographers notes that all his books contain a "campaigning element". HisReflections on the Decline of Science and some of its Causes (1830) stands out, however, for its sharp attacks. It aimed to improve British science, and more particularly to oustDavies Gilbert as President of the Royal Society, which Babbage wished to reform.[65] It was written out of pique, when Babbage hoped to become the junior secretary of the Royal Society, as Herschel was the senior, but failed because of his antagonism toHumphry Davy.[66] Michael Faraday had a reply written, byGerrit Moll, asOn the Alleged Decline of Science in England (1831).[67] On the front of the Royal Society Babbage had no impact, with the bland election of theDuke of Sussex to succeed Gilbert the same year. As a broad manifesto, on the other hand, hisDecline led promptly to the formation in 1831 of theBritish Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS).[67]
TheMechanics' Magazine in 1831 identified as Declinarians the followers of Babbage. In an unsympathetic tone it pointed outDavid Brewster writing in theQuarterly Review as another leader; with the barb that both Babbage and Brewster had received public money.[68]
In the debate of the period onstatistics (qua data collection) and what is nowstatistical inference, the BAAS in its Statistical Section (which owed something also toWhewell) opted for data collection. This Section was the sixth, established in 1833 with Babbage as chairman andJohn Elliot Drinkwater as secretary. The foundation of theStatistical Society followed.[69][70][71] Babbage was its public face, backed by Richard Jones andRobert Malthus.[72]
On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, 1835Babbage's notation for machine parts, explanation fromOn a method of expressing by signs the action of machinery (1827) of his "Mechanical Notation", invented for his own use in understanding the work on the difference engine, and an influence on the conception of the analytical engine[73]
Babbage publishedOn the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1832), on the organisation ofindustrial production. It was an influential early work ofoperational research.[74]John Rennie the Younger in addressing theInstitution of Civil Engineers on manufacturing in 1846 mentioned mostly surveys in encyclopaedias, and Babbage's book was first an article in theEncyclopædia Metropolitana, the form in which Rennie noted it, in the company of related works byJohn Farey Jr.,Peter Barlow andAndrew Ure.[75] FromAn essay on the general principles which regulate the application of machinery to manufactures and the mechanical arts (1827), which became theEncyclopædia Metropolitana article of 1829, Babbage developed the schematic classification of machines that, combined with discussion of factories, made up the first part of the book. The second part considered the "domestic and political economy" of manufactures.[76]
The book sold well, and quickly went to a fourth edition (1836).[77] Babbage represented his work as largely a result of actual observations in factories, British and abroad. It was not, in its first edition, intended to address deeper questions of political economy; the second (late 1832) did, with three further chapters including one onpiece rate.[78] The book also contained ideas on rational design in factories, andprofit sharing.[79]
InEconomy of Machinery was described what is now called the "Babbage principle". It pointed out commercial advantages available with more carefuldivision of labour. As Babbage himself noted, it had already appeared in the work ofMelchiorre Gioia in 1815.[80] The term was introduced in 1974 byHarry Braverman.[81] Related formulations are the "principle of multiples" ofPhilip Sargant Florence, and the "balance of processes".[82][83]
What Babbage remarked is that skilled workers typically spend parts of their time performing tasks that are below their skill level. If the labour process can be divided among several workers, labour costs may be cut by assigning only high-skill tasks to high-cost workers, restricting other tasks to lower-paid workers.[84] He also pointed out that training or apprenticeship can be taken as fixed costs; but thatreturns to scale are available by his approach of standardisation of tasks, therefore again favouring thefactory system.[85] His view ofhuman capital was restricted to minimising the time period for recovery of training costs.[86]
Another aspect of the work was its detailed breakdown of the cost structure of book publishing. Babbage took the unpopular line, from the publishers' perspective, of exposing the trade's profitability.[87] He went as far as to name the organisers of the trade's restrictive practices.[88] Twenty years later he attended a meeting hosted byJohn Chapman to campaign against the Booksellers Association, still acartel.[89]
It has been written that "whatArthur Young was to agriculture, Charles Babbage was to thefactory visit and machinery".[90] Babbage's theories are said to have influenced the layout of the1851 Great Exhibition,[91] and his views had a strong effect on his contemporaryGeorge Julius Poulett Scrope.[92]Karl Marx argued that the source of theproductivity of the factory system was exactly the combination of the division of labour with machinery, building onAdam Smith, Babbage and Ure.[93] Where Marx picked up on Babbage and disagreed with Smith was on the motivation for division of labour by the manufacturer: as Babbage did, he wrote that it was for the sake ofprofitability, rather than productivity, and identified an impact on the concept of atrade.[94]
Charles Babbage's Saturday night soirées, held from 1828 into the 1840s, were important gathering places for prominent scientists, authors and aristocracy. Babbage is credited with importing the "scientific soirée" from France with his well-attended Saturday evening soirées.[9][10]
Works by Babbage and Ure were published in French translation in 1830;[98]On the Economy of Machinery was translated in 1833 into French byÉdouard Biot, and into German the same year by Gottfried Friedenberg.[99] The French engineer and writer on industrial organisationLéon Lalanne was influenced by Babbage, but also by the economistClaude Lucien Bergery, in reducing the issues to "technology".[100]William Jevons connected Babbage's "economy of labour" with his own labour experiments of 1870.[101] The Babbage principle is an inherent assumption inFrederick Winslow Taylor'sscientific management.[102]
Think what must have been the effect of the intense Hinduizing of three such men as Babbage, De Morgan, and George Boole on the mathematical atmosphere of 1830–65. What share had it in generating theVector Analysis and the mathematics by which investigations in physical science are now conducted?[103]
In 1837, responding to the series of eightBridgewater Treatises, Babbage published hisNinth Bridgewater Treatise, under the titleOn the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation. In this work Babbage weighed in on the side ofuniformitarianism in a current debate.[104] He preferred the conception of creation in which a God-givennatural law dominated, removing the need for continuous "contrivance".[105]
The book is a work ofnatural theology, and incorporates extracts from related correspondence of Herschel withCharles Lyell.[106] Babbage put forward the thesis that God had the omnipotence and foresight to create as a divine legislator. In this book, Babbage dealt with relating interpretations between science and religion; on the one hand, he insisted that "there exists no fatal collision between the words ofScripture and the facts of nature;" on the other hand, he wrote that theBook of Genesis was not meant to be read literally in relation to scientific terms. Against those who said these were in conflict, he wrote "that the contradiction they have imagined can have no real existence, and that whilst the testimony ofMoses remains unimpeached, we may also be permitted to confide in the testimony of our senses."[107]
It was in TheNinth Bridgewater Treatise where Babbage proposed his 'library in the air' concept, where every breath, word and motion was imprinted at the atomic level in a record that could be accessed after the events occurred.
The air itself is one vast library on whose pages are for ever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered.[110][111]
Plate from theNinth Bridgewater Treatise, showing a parametric family ofalgebraic curves acquiring isolated real points
Jonar Ganeri, author ofIndian Logic, believes Babbage may have been influenced by Indian thought; one possible route would be throughHenry Thomas Colebrooke.[112] Mary Everest Boole argues that Babbage was introduced to Indian thought in the 1820s by her uncle George Everest:
Some time about 1825, [Everest] came to England for two or three years, and made a fast and lifelong friendship with Herschel and with Babbage, who was then quite young. I would ask any fair-minded mathematician to read Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise and compare it with the works of his contemporaries in England; and then ask himself whence came the peculiar conception of the nature of miracle which underlies Babbage's ideas of Singular Points on Curves (Chap, viii) – from European Theology or Hindu Metaphysic? Oh! how the English clergy of that day hated Babbage's book![103]
Babbage was raised in the Protestant form of the Christian faith, his family having inculcated in him an orthodox form of worship.[113] He explained:
My excellent mother taught me the usual forms of my daily and nightly prayer; and neither in my father nor my mother was there any mixture of bigotry and intolerance on the one hand, nor on the other of that unbecoming and familiar mode of addressing the Almighty which afterwards so much disgusted me in my youthful years.[114]
Rejecting theAthanasian Creed as a "direct contradiction in terms", in his youth he looked toSamuel Clarke's works on religion, of whichBeing and Attributes of God (1704) exerted a particularly strong influence on him. Later in life, Babbage concluded that "the true value of the Christian religion rested, not on speculative [theology] ... but ... upon those doctrines of kindness and benevolence which that religion claims and enforces, not merely in favour of man himself but of every creature susceptible of pain or of happiness."[115]
In his autobiographyPassages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), Babbage wrote a whole chapter on the topic of religion, where he identified three sources of divine knowledge:[116]
A priori or mystical experience
From Revelation
From the examination of the works of the Creator
He stated, on the basis of thedesign argument, that studying the works of nature had been the more appealing evidence, and the one which led him to actively profess theexistence of God.[117][118] Advocating for natural theology, he wrote:
In the works of the Creator ever open to our examination, we possess a firm basis on which to raise the superstructure of an enlightened creed. The more man inquires into the laws which regulate the material universe, the more he is convinced that all its varied forms arise from the action of a few simple principles ... The works of the Creator, ever present to our senses, give a living and perpetual testimony of his power and goodness far surpassing any evidence transmitted through human testimony. The testimony of man becomes fainter at every stage of transmission, whilst each new inquiry into the works of the Almighty gives to us more exalted views of his wisdom, his goodness, and his power.[119]
LikeSamuel Vince, Babbage also wrote a defence of the belief in divinemiracles.[120] Against objections previously posed byDavid Hume, Babbage advocated for the belief of divine agency, stating "we must not measure the credibility or incredibility of an event by the narrow sphere of our own experience, nor forget that there is a Divine energy which overrides what we familiarly call the laws of nature."[121] He alluded to the limits of human experience, expressing: "all that we see in a miracle is an effect which is new to our observation, and whose cause is concealed. The cause may be beyond the sphere of our observation, and would be thus beyond the familiar sphere of nature; but this does not make the event a violation of any law of nature. The limits of man's observation lie within very narrow boundaries, and it would be arrogance to suppose that the reach of man's power is to form the limits of the natural world."[122]
The Illustrated London News (4 November 1871)[123]
The British Association was consciously modelled on the Deutsche Naturforscher-Versammlung, founded in 1822.[124] It rejectedromantic science as well asmetaphysics, and started to entrench the divisions of science from literature, and professionals from amateurs.[125] Belonging as he did to the "Wattite" faction in the BAAS, represented in particular byJames Watt the younger, Babbage identified closely with industrialists. He wanted to go faster in the same directions, and had little time for the more gentlemanly component of its membership. Indeed, he subscribed to a version ofconjectural history that placedindustrial society as the culmination of human development (and shared this view with Herschel). A clash withRoderick Murchison led in 1838 to his withdrawal from further involvement.[126][127] At the end of the same year he sent in his resignation as Lucasian professor, walking away also from the Cambridge struggle with Whewell. His interests became more focused, on computation andmeteorology, and on international contacts.[128]
A project announced by Babbage was to tabulate allphysical constants (referred to as "constants of nature", a phrase in itself a neologism), and then to compile an encyclopaedic work of numerical information. He was a pioneer in the field of "absolute measurement".[129] His ideas followed on from those ofJohann Christian Poggendorff, and were mentioned toBrewster in 1832. There were to be 19 categories of constants, andIan Hacking sees these as reflecting in part Babbage's "eccentric enthusiasms".[130] Babbage's paperOn Tables of the Constants of Nature and Art was reprinted by theSmithsonian Institution in 1856, with an added note that the physical tables ofArnold Henry Guyot "will form a part of the important work proposed in this article".[131]
In 1838, Babbage invented thepilot (also called a cow-catcher), the metal frame attached to the front of locomotives that clears the tracks of obstacles;[137] he also constructed adynamometer car.[135] His eldest son,Benjamin Herschel Babbage, worked as an engineer for Brunel on the railways before emigrating to Australia in the 1850s.[138]
Babbage achieved notable results incryptography, though this was still not known a century after his death.Letter frequency was category 18 of Babbage's tabulation project.Joseph Henry later defended interest in it, in the absence of the facts, as relevant to the management ofmovable type.[130]
As early as 1845, Babbage had solved a cipher that had been posed as a challenge by his nephew Henry Hollier, and in the process, he made a discovery about ciphers that were based on Vigenère tables. Specifically, he realised that enciphering plain text with a keyword rendered the cipher text subject tomodular arithmetic.[141] During theCrimean War of the 1850s, Babbage broke Vigenère'sautokey cipher as well as the much weaker cipher that is calledVigenère cipher today. He intended to publish a bookThe Philosophy of Deciphering, but never did.[142][143] His discovery was kept a military secret, and was not published. Credit for the result was instead given toFriedrich Kasiski, a Prussian infantry officer, who made the same discovery some years later.[144] However, in 1854, Babbage published the solution of a Vigenère cipher, which had been published previously in theJournal of the Society of Arts.[141][145] In 1855, Babbage also published a short letter, "Cypher Writing", in the same journal.[146] Nevertheless, his priority was not established until 1985.[141][147]
Babbage involved himself in well-publicised but unpopular campaigns against public nuisances. He once counted all the broken panes of glass of a factory, publishing in 1857 a "Table of the Relative Frequency of the Causes of Breakage of Plate Glass Windows": Of 464 broken panes, 14 were caused by "drunken men, women or boys".[148][149][150]
Babbage's distaste for commoners (the Mob) included writing "Observations of Street Nuisances" in 1864, as well as tallying up 165 "nuisances" over a period of 80 days. He especially hatedstreet music, and in particular the music oforgan grinders, against whom he railed in various venues. The following quotation is typical:
It is difficult to estimate the misery inflicted upon thousands of persons, and the absolute pecuniary penalty imposed upon multitudes of intellectual workers by the loss of their time, destroyed by organ-grinders and other similar nuisances.[151]
Babbage was not alone in his campaign. A convert to the cause was the MPMichael Thomas Bass.[152]
In the 1860s, Babbage also took up the anti-hoop-rolling campaign. He blamed hoop-rolling boys for driving their iron hoops under horses' legs, with the result that the rider is thrown and very often the horse breaks a leg.[153] Babbage achieved a certain notoriety in this matter, being denounced in debate in Commons in 1864 for "commencing a crusade against the popular game oftip-cat and the trundling of hoops."[154]
Babbage's machines were among the first mechanical computers. That they were not actually completed was largely because of funding problems and clashes of personality, most notably with George Biddell Airy, the Astronomer Royal.[155]
Babbage directed the building of some steam-powered machines that achieved some modest success, suggesting that calculations could be mechanised. For more than ten years he received government funding for his project, which amounted to £17,000, but eventually the Treasury lost confidence in him.[156]
While Babbage's machines were mechanical and unwieldy, their basic architecture was similar to that of a modern computer. The data and program memory were separated, operation was instruction-based, the control unit could make conditional jumps, and the machine had a separateI/O unit.[156]
In Babbage's time, printedmathematical tables were calculated byhuman computers; in other words, by hand. They were central to navigation, science and engineering, as well as mathematics. Mistakes were known to occur in transcription as well as calculation.[56]
At Cambridge, Babbage saw the fallibility of this process, and the opportunity of adding mechanisation into its management. His own account of his path towards mechanical computation references a particular occasion:
In 1812 he was sitting in his rooms in the Analytical Society looking at a table of logarithms, which he knew to be full of mistakes, when the idea occurred to him of computing all tabular functions by machinery. The French government had produced several tables by a new method. Three or four of their mathematicians decided how to compute the tables, half a dozen more broke down the operations into simple stages, and the work itself, which was restricted to addition and subtraction, was done by eighty computers who knew only these two arithmetical processes. Here, for the first time, mass production was applied to arithmetic, and Babbage was seized by the idea that the labours of the unskilled computers [people] could be taken over completely by machinery which would be quicker and more reliable.[157]
There was another period, seven years later, when his interest was aroused by the issues around computation of mathematical tables. The French official initiative byGaspard de Prony, and its problems of implementation, were familiar to him. After theNapoleonic Wars came to a close, scientific contacts were renewed on the level of personal contact: in 1819Charles Blagden was in Paris looking into the printing of the stalled de Prony project, and lobbying for the support of the Royal Society. In works of the 1820s and 1830s, Babbage referred in detail to de Prony's project.[158][159]
The Science Museum's Difference Engine No. 2, built from Babbage's designPortion of Babbage's difference engine
Babbage began in 1822 with what he called the difference engine, made to compute values ofpolynomial functions. It was created to calculate a series of values automatically. By using the method of finite differences, it was possible to avoid the need for multiplication and division.[160]
For a prototype difference engine, Babbage brought inJoseph Clement to implement the design, in 1823. Clement worked to high standards, but hismachine tools were particularly elaborate. Under the standard terms of business of the time, he could charge for their construction, and would also own them. He and Babbage fell out over costs around 1831.[161]
Some parts of the prototype survive in theMuseum of the History of Science, Oxford.[162] This prototype evolved into the "first difference engine". It remained unfinished and the finished portion is located at the Science Museum in London. This first difference engine would have been composed of around 25,000 parts, weighed fifteenshort tons (13,600 kg), and would have been 8 ft (2.4 m) tall. Although Babbage received ample funding for the project, it was never completed. He later (1847–1849) produced detailed drawings for an improved version,"Difference Engine No. 2", but did not receive funding from the British government. His design was finally constructed in 1989–1991, using his plans and 19th-century manufacturing tolerances. It performed its first calculation at the Science Museum, London, returning results to 31 digits.[163]
Nine years later, in 2000, the Science Museum completed theprinter Babbage had designed for the difference engine.[164] His printers were the first computer printers invented.[7]
The Science Museum has constructed two Difference Engines according to Babbage's plans for the Difference Engine No 2. One is owned by the museum. The other, owned by the technology multimillionaireNathan Myhrvold, went on exhibition at theComputer History Museum[165] inMountain View, California on 10 May 2008.[166] The two models that have been constructed are not replicas.
Portion of the mill with a printing mechanism of the Analytical Engine, built by Charles Babbage, as displayed at the Science Museum (London)
After the attempt at making the first difference engine fell through, Babbage worked to design a more complex machine called the Analytical Engine. He hired C. G. Jarvis, who had previously worked for Clement as a draughtsman.[167] The Analytical Engine marks the transition from mechanised arithmetic to fully-fledged general purpose computation. It is largely on it that Babbage's standing as computer pioneer rests.[168]
The major innovation was that the Analytical Engine was to be programmed usingpunched cards: the Engine was intended to use loops ofJacquard's punched cards to control a mechanical calculator, which could use as input the results of preceding computations.[169][170] The machine was also intended to employ several features subsequently used in modern computers, including sequential control, branching and looping. It would have been the first mechanical device to be, in principle,Turing-complete. Charles Babbage wrote a series of programs for the Analytical Engine from 1837 to 1840.[171] The first program was finished in 1837.[172] The Engine was not a single physical machine, but rather a succession of designs that Babbage tinkered with until his death in 1871.[173]
Ada Lovelace, who corresponded with Babbage during his development of the Analytical Engine, is credited with developing an algorithm that would enable the Engine to calculate a sequence ofBernoulli numbers.[174] Despite documentary evidence in Lovelace's own handwriting,[174] some scholars dispute to what extent the ideas were Lovelace's own.[175][176][177] For this achievement, she is often described as the firstcomputer programmer;[178][failed verification] though no programming language had yet been invented.[174][179]
Lovelace also translated and wrote literature supporting the project. Describing the engine's programming by punch cards, she wrote: "We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as theJacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves."[170]
Babbage visitedTurin in 1840 at the invitation ofGiovanni Plana, who had developed in 1831 an analog computing machine that served as aperpetual calendar. Here in 1840 in Turin, Babbage gave the only public explanation and lectures about the Analytical Engine.[180][181] In 1842Charles Wheatstone approached Lovelace to translate a paper ofLuigi Menabrea, who had taken notes of Babbage's Turin talks; and Babbage asked her to add something of her own. Fortunato Prandi who acted as interpreter in Turin was an Italian exile and follower ofGiuseppe Mazzini.[182]
Per Georg Scheutz wrote about the difference engine in 1830, and experimented in automated computation. After 1834 and Lardner'sEdinburgh Review article he set up a project of his own, doubting whether Babbage's initial plan could be carried out. This he pushed through with his son, Edvard Scheutz.[183] Another Swedish engine was that ofMartin Wiberg (1860).[184]
In 2011, researchers in Britain proposed a multimillion-pound project, "Plan 28",[185] to construct Babbage's Analytical Engine. Since Babbage's plans were continually being refined and were never completed, they intended to engage the public in the project andcrowd-source the analysis of what should be built.[186] It would have the equivalent of 675 bytes of memory, and run at a clock speed of about 7 Hz. They hoped to complete it by the 150th anniversary of Babbage's death, in 2021.[187]
Advances inMEMS andnanotechnology have led to recent high-tech experiments in mechanical computation. The benefits suggested include operation in high radiation or high temperature environments.[188] These modern versions of mechanical computation were highlighted inThe Economist in its special "end of the millennium" black cover issue in an article entitled "Babbage's Last Laugh".[189]
On 25 July 1814, Babbage married Georgiana Whitmore, sister of British parliamentarianWilliam Wolryche-Whitmore, at St. Michael's Church inTeignmouth, Devon.[23] The couple lived atDudmaston Hall,[192] Shropshire (where Babbage engineered the central heating system), before moving to 5 Devonshire Street, London in 1815.[193]
Charles and Georgiana had eight children,[194] but only four –Benjamin Herschel, Georgiana Whitmore,Dugald Bromhead and Henry Prevost – survived childhood. Charles' wife Georgiana died inWorcester on 1 September 1827, the same year as his father, their second son (also named Charles) and their newborn son Alexander.
Benjamin Herschel Babbage (1815–1878)
Charles Whitmore Babbage (1817–1827)
Georgiana Whitmore Babbage (1818 – 26 September 1834)[195]
His youngest surviving son, Henry Prevost Babbage (1824–1918), went on to create six small demonstration pieces for Difference Engine No. 1 based on his father's designs,[196] one of which was sent toHarvard University where it was later discovered byHoward H. Aiken, pioneer of theHarvard Mark I. Henry Prevost's 1910 Analytical Engine Mill, previously on display at Dudmaston Hall, is now on display at the Science Museum.[197]
Babbage lived and worked for over 40 years at 1 Dorset Street, Marylebone, where he died, at the age of 79, on 18 October 1871; he was buried in London'sKensal Green Cemetery. According to Horsley, Babbage died "of renal inadequacy, secondary tocystitis."[198] He had declined both a knighthood[failed verification] and baronetcy. He also argued againsthereditary peerages, favouringlife peerages instead.[199]
In 1983, the autopsy report for Charles Babbage was discovered and later published by his great-great-grandson.[200][201] A copy of the original is also available.[202] Half of Babbage's brain is preserved at theHunterian Museum in London.[203] The other half of Babbage's brain is on display in the Science Museum, London.[204]
There is a black plaque commemorating the 40 years Babbage spent at 1 Dorset Street, London.[205] Locations, institutions and other things named after Babbage include:
TheDoctor Who episode "Spyfall, Part 2" (Season 12, episode 2) features Charles Babbage and Ada Gordon as characters who assist the Doctor when she's stuck in the year 1834.
^abCollier, Bruce; MacLachlan, James H. (1998).Charles Babbage and the engines of perfection. Oxford portraits in science. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.ISBN978-0-19-508997-4.
^abGavin Budge et al. (editors),The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophers (2002), Thoemmes Press (two volumes), article Babbage, Charles, p. 35.
^Gavin Budge et al. (editors),The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophers (2002), Thoemmes Press (two volumes), article Babbage, Charles, p. 39.
^Ashworth, William J. (1996). "Memory, Efficiency, and Symbolic Analysis: Charles Babbage, John Herschel, and the Industrial Mind".Isis.87 (4):629–653.doi:10.1086/357650.JSTOR235196.S2CID143404822.
^Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), The Athanasian Creed, p. 403: "In the course of my inquiries, I met with the work upon the Trinity, by Dr. Samuel Clarke. This I carefully examined, and although very far from being satisfied, I ceased from further inquiry. This change arose probably from my having acquired the much more valuable work of the same author, on the Being and Attributes of God. This I studied, and felt that its doctrine was much more intelligible and satisfactory than that of the former work. I may now state, as the result of a long life spent in studying the works of the Creator, that I am satisfied they afford far more satisfactory and more convincing proofs of the existence of a supreme Being than any evidence transmitted through human testimony can possibly supply."
"C." (Charles Babbage) (1 September 1854),"Mr. Thwaites's cypher,"Journal of the Society of Arts,2 (93) : 707–708.
Thwaites, John H. B. (15 September 1854)."Secret or cypher writing".Journal of the Society of Arts.2 (95):732–733.
"C" (Charles Babbage) (6 October 1854)."Mr. Thwaites's cypher".Journal of the Society of Arts.2 (98):776–777.
Charles Babbage,Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (London, England: Longman, 1864),page 496.
^Hooper, George N.; Babbage, Charles; Clarke, Hyde; Webster, Thomas; Bentham, M. S.; Good, S. A. (1855). "Journal of the Society for Arts, Vol. 4, no. 159".The Journal of the Society of Arts.4 (159):29–44.JSTOR41334443.
^See also: Ole Immanuel Franksen,Mr. Babbage's Secret. The Tale of a Cypher – and APL (Birkerød, Denmark: Strandbergs Forlag, 1984; reprinted by: Prentice-Hall, Englewood, New Jersey, US, 1985)
^Babbage, Charles (1857). "Table of the Relative Frequency of Occurrence of the Causes of Breaking of Plate Glass Windows".Mechanics Magazine.66: 82.
^Babbage, Charles (1989). Martin Campbell-Kelly (ed.).The Works of Charles Babbage. Vol. V. London: William Pickering. p. 137.ISBN978-1-85196-005-7.
^Campbell-Kelly, Martin; Babbage, Charles (1994). "Ch 26".Passages from the Life of a Philosopher. Pickering & Chatto Publishers. p. 342.ISBN978-1-85196-040-8.
^Hansard's parliamentary debates. Third Series Commencing With the Accession of William IV. 27° & 28° Victoria, 1864. Vol. CLXXVI. Comprising the Period From the Twenty-First Day of June 1864, To the Twenty-Ninth Day of July 1864. Parliament, Thomas Curson Hansard "Street Music (Metropolis) Bill "; V4, p471[1]
^abcRobin Hammerman, Andrew L. Russell (2016).Ada's Legacy: Cultures of Computing from the Victorian to the Digital Age. Association for Computing Machinery and Morgan & Claypool Publishers.ISBN978-1-970001-51-8
^Fuegi J, Francis J (October–December 2003). "Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes'".Annals of the History of Computing.25 (4):16–26.Bibcode:2003IAHC...25d..16F.doi:10.1109/MAHC.2003.1253887. See pages 19, 25
^Williams, Michael R. (1998). "The "Last Word " on Charles Babbage".IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.20 (4):10–14.doi:10.1109/85.728225.(subscription required)
Craik, Alex D. D. (February 2005). "Prehistory of Faà di Bruno's Formula".The American Mathematical Monthly.112 (2):119–130.doi:10.2307/30037410.JSTOR30037410.
The Babbage Papers The papers held by the Science Museum Library and Archives which relate mostly to Babbage's automatic calculating engines
The Babbage Engine: Computer History Museum, Mountain View CA, US. Multi-page account of Babbage, his engines and his associates, including a video of the Museum's functioning replica of the Difference Engine No 2 in action
Charles Babbage Institute: pages on "Who Was Charles Babbage?" including biographical note, description of Difference Engine No. 2, publications by Babbage, archival and published sources on Babbage, sources on Babbage and Ada Lovelace
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