Invention Of Computer
Charles Babbage
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| Charles Babbage |
Charles Babbage was born on Dec. 26, 1791 in England. He was a polymath and became a mathematician, mechanical engineer, inventor, and philosopher. He contributed to many different scientific fields but his most famous work is designing a programmable computing device.
Charles Babbage is considered the “father of the computer” and is given credit for devising the first ever mechanical computer. His design served as the blue print for other, more complex machines.
In 1991, a functioning Difference Engine No. 2 was built based on Babbage’s original drawings at the Science Museum, London.It consisted of 8,000 parts, weighed five tons, and measured 11 feet long. The engine was built under conditions that were available during the 19th century. In 2000, the Science Museum also completed the printer Babbage had designed for the difference engine for Charles Babbage.
His early life
There is some dispute about the birthplace of Charles Babbage but as stated in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Babbage was born at 44 Crosby Row at Walworth Road in London, England. A blue plaque has been placed along the junction of Walworth Road and Larcom Street to commemorate the birth of this brilliant man.
Charles Babbage was one of four children born to Betsy Plumleigh Teape and Benjamin Babbage. His father was a banker and he was the partner of William Praed. Together they founded Praed’s & Co. of Fleet Street London in 1801.
When he was 8 years of age, Charles Babbage was sent to the countryside at Alphington near Exeter for schooling to help him recover from a fever that had nearly ended his life. Later he also attended the King Edward VI Grammar School in Totnes, South Devon but due to his poor health he returned home and was educated by private tutors.
Later still, he attended the small Holmwood academy in Enfield, Middlesex. The academy had a library and there Babbage’s love of mathematics blossomed. At the age of about 16 or 17 Babbage went back to Totnes to study and also had a tutor from Oxford. It was under this tutor that he learnt the Classics so that he could be admitted to Cambridge.
Charles Babbage's Education and Early Career
In 1810, Charles Babbage began studying at Trinity College, Cambridge. Though he excelled in mathematics, his dislike of the classics meant that he had to undergo extra tutoring to bring him up to speed. In 1812, he transferred to Peterhouse College, Cambridge. He was among the top mathematics students of his day. During his time at Cambridge, Babbage co-founded a club called the Analytical Society that sought to integrate new mathematics texts from the European continent into the Cambridge curriculum. Babbage's professors were teaching Newtonian mathematics without referencing newer work by mathematicians like Leibniz, which frustrated Babbage and some of his fellow pupils.
In 1816, shortly after graduating from Cambridge, Babbage became a Fellow of the Royal Society, which was a major honor. Despite the prestige associated with his election, Babbage found the members of the Royal Society to be self-congratulatory and insufficiently intellectually rigorous. He became an astronomy lecturer at the Royal Institution and began to work on an idea for an automatic calculator that would one day make his name. In 1820, he was one of the founders of the Royal Astronomical Society, for which he worked for several years. During this time, Babbage published several mathematical papers, but they were not his most groundbreaking work.
What Did Charles Babbage Invent ?
The above biography notes that Babbage spent a lot of time on his inventions, but what did Charles Babbage invent? Babbage is known for two major inventions: the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine. Both of these machines were extremely complex, and Charles Babbage struggled to complete working prototypes. Because of the impact of the inventions, Babbage is today known as the Father of Computing. Even though he did not manage to complete his work, Babbage's ideas became the foundation for the Computer Revolution of the twentieth century.
Charles Babbage's First Computer: The Difference Engine
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| The Difference Engine |
Charles Babbage's first computer, in a loose sense of the word, was his Difference Engine, sometimes called a difference machine. The idea behind the Difference Engine was the creation of a machine that could construct mathematical tables using addition mechanisms. The machine, Babbage hoped, would help reduce the likelihood of human mathematical errors. He created a small prototype of the machine in 1822, but he wanted to build a larger one that could calculate larger sums much faster.
Despite huge amounts of funding from the British government, as well as Babbage's significant investment of his own funds, he was unable to complete the larger Difference Engine, and he gave up work on the machine in 1834. In addition to the machine's significant complexity, Babbage's main obstacle was that metalworking technology at the time could not reliably produce parts that were small, accurate, and sturdy enough to make the clockwork mechanisms function. Although the finished machine was never built, Babbage's small prototype was still revolutionary.
The Analytical Engine
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| The Analytical Engine |
During his lifetime, Charles Babbage was accused of being more interested in the theory and cutting edge of innovation than actually producing the tables the government was paying him to create. This wasn’t exactly unfair, because by the time the funding for the Difference Engine had evaporated, Babbage had come up with a new idea: the Analytical Engine. This was a massive step beyond the Difference Engine: it was a general-purpose device that could compute many different problems. It was to be digital, automatic, mechanical, and controlled by variable programs. In short, it would solve any calculation you wished. It would be the first computer.
The Analytical Engine had four parts:
.A mill, which was the section that did the calculations (essentially the CPU)
.The store, where the information was kept recorded (essentially the memory)
.The reader, which would allow data to be entered using punched cards (essentially the keyboard)
The printer
The punch cards were modeled on those developed for the Jacquard loom and would allow the machine a greater flexibility than anything ever invented to do calculations. Babbage had grand ambitions for the device, and the store was supposed to hold 1,050 digit numbers. It would have a built-in ability to weigh up data and process instructions out of order if necessary. It would be steam-driven, made of brass, and require a trained operator/driver.
Babbage was aided by Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), daughter of the British poet Lord Byron and one of the few women of the era with an education in mathematics. Charles Babbage greatly admired her published translation of a French article on Babbage's work, which included her voluminous notes.
The Engine was beyond what Charles Babbage could afford and maybe what technology could then produce, but the government had grown exasperated with Babbage and funding was not forthcoming. Babbage continued to work on the project until he died in 1871, by many accounts an embittered man who felt more public funds should be directed towards the advancement of science. It might not have been finished, but the Analytical Engine was a breakthrough in imagination, if not practicality. Babbage’s engines were forgotten, and supporters had to struggle to keep him well regarded; some members of the press found it easier to mock. When computers were invented in the twentieth century, the inventors did not use Babbage’s plans or ideas, and it was only in the seventies that his work was fully understood.
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