Charles Babbage - Computer Scientist
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Charles Babbage was an English mathematician and inventor known as the 'father of the computer' for his conceptualization of programmable computers and for creating the first mechanical computer. He was born around December 26, 1792, and educated through private tutoring due to health issues, later gaining recognition for his designs, including the difference engine. Babbage's contributions to mathematics and computing were significant, earning him accolades and establishing him as a prominent member of scientific societies.
![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 [human]
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 could be taken over completely by
machinery which would be quicker and more
reliable.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/computerscientist2-180526095941/85/Charles-Babbage-Computer-Scientist-8-320.jpg)
Charles Babbage - Computer Scientist
- 3. Charles Babbage, was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor (scientist) and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer. Considered a "father of the computer", Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs. Parts of his uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the London Science Museum. In 1991, a perfectly functioning difference engine was constructed from Babbage's original plans.
- 4. Birth Babbage's birthplace is disputed, but he was most likely born at 44 Crosby Row, Walworth Road, London, England. A blue plaque on the junction of Larcom Street and Walworth Road commemorates the event. His date of birth was given in his obituary in The Times as 26 December 1792.
- 5. His father's money allowed Charles to receive instruction from several schools and tutors during the course of his elementary education. Around the age of eight he was sent to a country school in Alphington near Exeter to recover from a life- threatening fever. His parents ordered that his "brain was not to be taxed too much " and Babbage felt that "this great idleness may have led to some of my childish reasonings." For a short time he attendedKing Edward VI Grammar School in Totnes, South Devon, but his health forced him back to private tutors for a time. Education
- 7. Design of computers Part of Babbage's difference engine (#1), assembled after his death by Babbage's son, Henry Prevost Babbage (1824- 1918), using parts found in his laboratory 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.
- 8. 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 [human] 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 could be taken over completely by machinery which would be quicker and more reliable.
- 9. In 1824, Babbage won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society "for his invention of an engine for calculating mathematical and astronomical tables". He was a founding member of the society and one of its oldest living members on his death in 1871. From 1828 to 1839 Babbage was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. He contributed largely to several scientific periodicals, and was instrumental in founding the Astronomical Society in 1820 and the Statistical Society in 1834.
- 10. However, he dreamt of designing mechanical calculating machines, later writing: I was sitting in the rooms of the Analytical Society, at Cambridge, my head leaning forward on the table in a kind of dreamy mood, with a table of logarithms lying open before me. Another member, coming into the room, and seeing me half asleep, called out, "Well, Babbage, what are you dreaming about?" to which I replied "I am thinking that all these tables" (pointing to the logarithms) "might be calculated by machinery".