Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the ComputerThis book discusses the career of Charles Babbage (1791-1871), British advocate of the systematic use of science in industry and creator of machines that were precursors of the modern computer. Babbage used his immense personal charm and vitality in an attempt to change the thinking of contemporary industrialists who had little use for the higher reaches of science. Shifting his own energies from pure mathematics, he planned engines that would "calculate by steam": the Difference Engines, designed to compute tables according to the method of finite differences, and the more complex Analytical Engines, forerunners of the modern computer.
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From inside the book
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... of Charles Babbage 256 Appendices A. From Passages from the Life of a Philosopher 261 B. On the Mathematical Powers of the Calculating Engine 268 Index 277 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Charles Babbage by S. Laurence , 1845.
... mathematics and , with two friends , transformed mathematics in Cambridge and thus throughout Britain . At the age of thirty he made a change of direction startling in its suddenness . He began to construct a machine for making mathematical ...
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Contents
Childhood | 5 |
Cambridge | 20 |
Marriage Early Years of a Philosopher in London | 31 |
Science in Action Start on the First Engine | 47 |
The Death of Georgiana Continental Travel | 62 |
Reform | 75 |
Science and Reform The Royal Society | 88 |
On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures | 103 |
The Analytical Engines Social Life | 164 |
Analytical Engines and the Circumlocution Office | 190 |
The Great Exhibition | 211 |
The Death of Ada A Family Reunion | 225 |
Final Passages in the Life of a Philosopher | 241 |
From the Analytical Engines to the Modern Computer | 254 |
Published Works of Charles Babbage | 255 |
From Passages from the Life of a Philosopher | 261 |