By: Rachael Foster

 Born: December 26,1791 in London  School:  attended Trinity College in Cambridge(1811)  transferred to Peterhouse in Cambridge where he graduated and later received an honorary degree(1814)  because of the poor math programs available in Cambridge Babbage, J.Herschel, G.Peacock and a few others formed the Analytical Society  Family:  Married Georgiana Whitmore in 1814  His father didn’t approve of his marriage  They had eight children

 In 1816 Babbage was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.  Babbage played a large role in the founding of the Astronomical Society. This is where his interest and passion for calculating machinery emerged.

 Problem= high error rate in math table calculations  Babbage’s plan= find a mechanical method of calculation, eliminating human error  Influences:  Hated disorder and imprecision  Experienced with logarithmical tables  Inspired by the works of W. Schickard, B.Pascal, and G. Leibniz

 Able to calculate polynomials by the differences method  In 1823, the government granted him $1,500 to build it  Hand-made parts using custom tools(Babbage designed most of them)  A fire destroyed the plans for the Difference Engine while Babbage was away in Europe  With the Royal Society’s support, the government continued to fund Babbage’s project  Babbage built a new workshop (fireproof and dust free).  His associate, Clement, refused to move to the new workshop and would not give Babbage back the plans or tools needed to construct the Difference Engine.  The Difference Engine was never completed. In 1834, Babbage stopped work on the Difference Machine. $23,000 was spent in efforts to construct it.

 Could be programmed to do any calculation  used punch cards (idea from Jacquard's loom) for input and to identify what calculations to perform  Output printed on paper  Two parts:  The “mill” ▪ Retrieved and executed instructions from the “store”  The “store” ▪ Readable/Writable memory (held data/programs)  Lady Lovelace wrote down specific instructions explaining how the machine worked  The Analytical Engine project was also never finished

The Analytical Engine *** according to plans, the completed mill would be 15 feet high and the store would be 25 feet long!

 Cowcatcher  Dynamometer  Standard railroad gauge  Uniform postal rates  Occulting lights for lighthouses  Greenwich time signals  Heliograph ophthalmoscope

 A crater near the northern pole of the moon is named after Babbage  He wasn’t well-known– only one carriage followed in his burial procession and the Royal Society printed no obituary  After Babbage’s death, his brain was preserved in alcohol for 37 years before being dissected by Sir Victor Horsley of the Royal Society  Out of his eight children, only three lived to be adults  Babbage’s father, wife, and one of his children all died in the same year(1827)  He despises music  He was obsessed with fire, once baking himself in an oven at 265°F for four minutes just to see what would happen!

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