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This 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. Almost forgotten and then rediscovered in the middle of the twentieth century, the Analytical Engines are among the great intellectual achievements of humankind. This biography of their polymathic inventor gives a convincing account of his tragic personal life and his important place in the history of science.
| List of Illustrations | ix | |
| Abbreviations | xiii | |
| Principal Sources | xv | |
| Prelude: Child of Two Revolutions | 1 | |
| 1. | Childhood | 5 |
| 2. | Cambridge | 20 |
| 3. | Marriage: Early Years of a Philosopher in London | 31 |
| 4. | Science in Action: Start on the First Engine | 47 |
| 5. | The Death of Georgiana: Continental Travel | 62 |
| 6. | Reform | 75 |
| 7. | Science and Reform: The Royal Society | 88 |
| 8. | On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures | 103 |
| 9. | The Great Engine | 123 |
| 10. | The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise | 136 |
| 11. | Rail, Steam, and the British Association | 143 |
| 12. | The Analytical Engines: Social Life | 164 |
| 13. | Analytical Engines and the Circumlocution Office | 190 |
| 14. | The Great Exhibition | 211 |
| 15. | The Death of Ada: A Family Reunion | 225 |
| 16. | Final Passages in the Life of a Philosopher | 241 |
| Epilogue: From the Analytical Engines to the Modern Computer | 254 | |
| Published Works 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 |
Overview
This 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 ...