CHARLES BABBAGE

SUMIRAN ADHIKARI
CLASS: IX “A”
ROLL:24
CONTENTS
1 Birth
2 Education

3 Marriage, family, death

4 Design of computers

 4.1 Difference engine
 4.1.1 Completed models
 4.2 Analytical engine
› 4.3 Modern adaptations
CHARLES BABBAGE
 CHARLES BABBAGE
 Charles Babbage, FRS (26 December 1791 – 18 October
1871) was an English
mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical
engineer who originated the concept of a
programmable computer. 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. Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th
century, the success of the finished engine indicated
that Baabbage's machine would have worked. Nine
years later, the Science Museum completed
the printer Babbage had designed for the difference
engine, an astonishingly complex device for the 19th
century. Considered a "father of the computer",[4]
 Babbage is credited with inventing the first
mechanical computer that eventually led to more
complex designs.
 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

25 December 1792. However after the obituary appeared, a

nephew wrote to say that Charles Babbage was born one
year earlier, in 1791. The parish register of St.
Mary's Newington, London, shows that Babbage
was baptized on 6 January 1792, supporting a birth year of
1791.
Babbage's father, Benjamin Babbage, was a banking partner

of the Praeds who owned the Bitton Estate in Teignmouth.

His mother was Betsy Plumleigh Teape. In 1808, the
Babbage family moved into the old Rowdens house in East
Teignmouth, and Benjamin Babbage became a warden of the
nearby St. Michael’s Church.

 EDUCATION
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 Aplington 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 attended King Edward VI Grammar School
in Totnes, South Devon, but his health forced him back to private tutors for a time.
 He then joined a 30-student Holmwood academy, in Baker Street, Enfield,
Middlesex under Reverend Stephen Freeman. The academy had a well-stocked
library that prompted Babbage's love of mathematics. He studied with two more
private tutors after leaving the academy. Of the first, a clergyman near Cambridge,
Babbage said, "I fear I did not derive from it all the advantages that I might have
done." The second was an Oxford tutor from whom Babbage learned enough of the
Classics to be accepted to Cambridge.
Babbage arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1810.] He had read
extensively in Leibniz, Joseph Louis Lagrange, Thomas Simpson, and Lacroix and
was seriously disappointed in the mathematical instruction available at Cambridge.
In response, he, John Herschel,George Peacock, and several other friends formed
the Analytical Society in 1812. Babbage, Herschel and Peacock were also close
friends with future judge and patron of science Edward Ryan. Babbage and Ryan
married two sisters.
In 1812 Babbage transferred to Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was the top
mathematician at Peterhouse, but did not graduate with honours. He instead
received an honorary degree without examination in 1814.

Grave of Charles Babbage
at Kensal Green Cemetery
 Marriage, Family, Death
On 25 July 1814, Babbage married Georgiana Whitmore at St. Michael's
Church in Teignmouth, Devon. The couple lived at Dudmaston Hall,[
Shropshire (where Babbage engineered the central heating system),
before moving to 5 Devonshire Street, Portland Place, London.
Charles and Georgiana had eight children, but only three — Benjamin

Herschel, Georgiana Whitmore, and Henry Prevost — survived to

adulthood. Georgiana died in Worcester on 1 September 1827. Charles'
father, wife, and at least one son all died in 1827. These deaths caused
Babbage to go into a mental breakdown which delayed the construction of
his machines.
His youngest son, Henry Prevost Babbage (1824–1918), went on to create

six working difference engines based on his father's designs,one of which

was sent to Harvard University where it was later discovered by Howard H.
Aiken, pioneer of the Harvard Mark I. Henry Prevost's 1910 Analytical
Engine Mill, previously on display at Dudmaston Hall, is now on display
at the Science Museum.
Charles Babbage died at age 79 on 18 October 1871, and was buried in

London's Kensal Green Cemetery. According to Horsley, Babbage died "of

renal inadequacy, secondary to cystitis.“ In 1983 the autopsy report for
Charles Babbage was discovered and later published by one of his
descendants. A copy of the original is also available.Half of Babbage's
brain is preserved at the Hunterian Museum in the Royal College of
Surgeons in London

Part of Babbage's difference engine, assembled
after his death by Babbage's son, using parts
found in his laboratory.
 Design of computers
This
 section may contain original research. Please improve
it by verifying the
claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of
original research may be removed. Babbage sought a method by which
mathematical tables could be calculated mechanically, removing the

high rate of human error. Three different factors seem to have influenced
him: a dislike of untidiness; his experience working on logarithmic tables;
and existing work on calculating machines carried out by Wilhelm
Schickard, Blaise Pascal, and Gottfried Leibniz. He first discussed the
principles of a calculating engine in a letter to Sir Humphry Davy in
1822.
Part of Babbage's difference engine, assembled after his death by
Babbage's son, using parts found in his laboratory.
Babbage's machines were among the first mechanical computers,
although they were not actually completed, largely because of funding
problems and personality issues. He directed the building of some
steam-powered machines that achieved some success, suggesting that
calculations could be mechanized. Although Babbage's machines were
mechanical and unwieldy, their basic architecture was very similar to a
modern computer. The data and program memory were separated,
operation was instruction based, the control unit could make conditional
jumps and the machine had a separate I/O unit.

 The London Science
Museum'sDifference Engine ,
built from Babbage's design.
 DIFFERENCE ENGINE
In Babbage’s time, numerical tables were calculated by humans who were called
‘computers’, meaning "one who computes", much as a conductor is "one who
conducts". At Cambridge, he saw the high error-rate of this human-driven process
and started his life’s work of trying to calculate the tables mechanically. He began
in 1822 with what he called the difference engine, made to compute values of
polynomial functions. Unlike similar efforts of the time, Babbage's difference engine
was created to calculate a series of values automatically. By using the method
of finite differences, it was possible to avoid the need for multiplication and division.
The London Science Museum's Difference Engine #2, built from Babbage's design.

The first difference engine was composed of around 25,000 parts, weighed

fifteen tons (13,600 kg), and stood 8 ft (2.4 m) high. Although he received ample

funding for the project, it was never completed. He later designed an improved
version, "Difference Engine No. 2", which was not constructed until 1989-1991,
using Babbage's plans and 19th century manufacturing tolerances. It performed its
first caalculation at the London Science Museum returning results to 31 digits, far
more than the average modern pocket calculator.
Completed models

The London Science Museum has constructed two Difference Engines, according to

Babbage's plans for the Difference Engine No 2. One is owned by the museum; the
other, owned by technology millionaire Nathan Myhrvold, went on exhibit at
the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California on 10 May 2008.The
two models that have been constructed are not replicas; until the assembly of the
first Difference Engine No 2 by the London Science Museum, no model of the
Difference Engine No 2 existed
 ANALYTICAL ENGINE
Soon after the attempt at making the difference engine crumbled, Babbage started designing a different,
more complex machine called the Analytical Engine. The engine is not a single physical machine but a
succession of designs that he tinkered with until his death in 1871. The main difference between the two
engines is that the Analytical Engine could be programmed using punch cards. He realized that programs
could be put on these cards so the person had only to create the program initially, and then put the cards
in the machine and let it run. The analytical engine would have used loops of Jacquard's punched cards to
control a mechanical calculator, which could formulate results based on the results of preceding
computations. This machine was also intended to employ several features subsequently used in modern
computers, including sequential control, branching, and looping, and would have been the first mechanical
device to be Turing-complete.
Ada Lovelace, an impressive mathematician, and one of the few people who fully understood Babbage's
ideas, created a program for the Analytical Engine. Had the Analytical Engine ever actually been built, her
program would have been able to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. Based on this work, Lovelace
is now widely credited with being the first computer programmer.[ In 1979, a contemporary programming
language was named Ada in her honors. Shortly afterward, in 1981, a satirical article by Tony Karp in the
magazine Datamation described the Babbage programming language as the "language of the future.
Modern adaptations


While the abacus and mechanical calculator have been replaced by electronic calculators


using microchips, the recent advances in MEMS and nanotechnology have led to recent high-tech

experiments in mechanical computation. The benefits suggested include operation in high radiation or high
temperature environments. These modern versions of mechanical computation were highlighted in the
magazine The Economist in its special "end of the millennium" black cover issue in an article entitled
"Babbage's Last Laugh"


the