1.

Charles Babbage
Do you ever wonder who you have to thank for the powerful desktop or laptop you are now using for
practically everything you do? You might say all thanks should be given to the computer companies
of today but in fact, you have Charles Babbage to thank. The name might not be familiar to you just
yet but read on because pretty soon, “Charles Babbage” will be on your mind every time you use your
computer.

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.

In 1814, Babbage married Georgiana Whitmore. They had eight children together, but only three
lived beyond childhood. His wife died in 1827.

Charles Babbage died on Oct. 18, 1871, aged 79. He is buried in the Kensal Green Cemetery in
London. Cause of death was “renal inadequacy”.

2.Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), the French philosopher and scientist, was one of the greatest and most
influential mathematicians of all time. He was also an expert in hydrostatics, an inventor, and a well-
versed religious philosopher.

Born at Clermont-Ferrand on June 19, 1623, Pascal’s father was Étienne Pascal, a local judge and
later a tax collector. His mother, Antoinette Begon, died in 1626. He was the second child of three
children and the only son. The Pascal family settled in Paris in 1631 and later they moved to Rouen
in 1640.

At a tender age of 12, Pascal began participating in the meetings of a mathematical academy. He
learned different languages from his father, Latin and Greek in particular, but Pascal Sr. didn’t teach
him mathematics. This increased the curiosity of young Pascal, who went on to experiment with
geometrical figures, even formulating his own names for standard geometrical terms.

Pascal wrote an important short work on projective geometry, “Essay on Conics” aged just 16.
Pascal’s Theorem, also known as the Mystic Hexagram, states that opposite sides of a hexagon
inscribed in a conic, intersect in three collinear points.

Blaise Pascal died of a stomach tumor on 19 August, 1662 at the young age of 39. The Pascal (Pa)
unit of pressure was named in his honor. The computer language Pascal is named after him in
recognition of his early computing machine.
Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace: The First Computer Programmer

Ada Lovelace has been called the world's first computer programmer. What she did was write the
world’s first machine algorithm for an early computing machine that existed only on paper. Of course,
someone had to be the first, but Lovelace was a woman, and this was in the 1840s. Lovelace was a
brilliant mathematician, thanks in part to opportunities that were denied most women of the time.

Born two centuries ago, Ada Lovelace was a pioneer of computing science. She took part in writing
the first published program and was a computing visionary, recognizing for the first time that computers
could do much more than just calculations.

Ada Lovelace was born in London, England, UK on December 10, 1815. She was named Augusta
Ada Byron. Her surname changed after she married.

In 1835, at the age of 19, Ada married William King, the Earl of Lovelace, with whom she would have
three children between 1836 and 1839.

In 1841 she began working on mathematics again, and was given advanced work by Professor
Augustus De Morgan of University College London. She also continued to learn advanced
mathematics through correspondence with Mary Somerville.

Ada Lovelace died, probably of uterine cancer, at the age of 36 on November 27, 1852.