Charles babbage (1792‐1871)

Abstract

Charles Babbage was an English mathematician who devoted most of his life to the design and construction of machines that would perform mathematical operations and produce printed mathematical tables. His first ambition was to build a mechanical calculating machine; his second ambition was to build a mechanical digital computer that could be programmed and used for the same purposes as those of modern electronic digital computers. Although Babbage showed great inventive genius in formulating how these machines were to be built, he only partly succeeded in making his ideas realities. His efforts were thwarted by lack of financial support, zeal on his part to build excessively large machines, far larger than he needed to prove the worth of his ideas, and by inadequate machine tools–he worked decades before machine shop practice could aspire to the kind of precision machinery he needed. As a pioneer in developing the underlying principles of digital computers, he is a major figure in the history of the information sciences. Babbage had many other scientific interests, and, as an indefatigable worker, he made notable contributions to most of the subjects he touched.