Babbage's Calculating Engines: Being a Collection of Papers Relating to them; their History and Construction

by Charles Babbage, Henry P. Babbage

Overview

The famous and prolific nineteenth-century mathematician, engineer and inventor Charles Babbage (1791–1871) was an early pioneer of computing. He planned several calculating machines, but none was built in his lifetime. On his death his youngest son, Henry P. Babbage, was charged with the task of completing an unfinished volume of papers on the machines, which was finally published in 1889 and is reissued here. The papers, by a variety of authors, were collected from journals including The Philosophical Magazine, The Edinburgh Review and Scientific Memoirs. They relate to the construction and potential application of Charles Babbage's calculating engines, notably the Difference Engine and the more complex Analytical Engine, which was to be programmed using punched cards. The book also includes correspondence with members of scientific societies, as well as proceedings, catalogues and drawings. Included is a complete catalogue of the drawings of the Analytical Engine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108000963
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/20/2010
Series:	Cambridge Library Collection - Mathematics
Pages:	388
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 11.60(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. Statement of the circumstances attending the invention and construction of Mr Babbage's calculating engines; 2. Sketch of the analytical engine, invented by Charles Babbage L. F. Menabrea; 3. Babbage's calculating engine Dionysius Lardner; 4. Excerpts from 'Passages from the Life of a Philosopher'; 5. Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables; 6. A letter to Sir Humphry Davy on the application of machinery to the calculating and printing mathematical tables; 7. On the theoretical principles of the machinery for calculating tables; 8. Observations on the application of machinery to the computation of mathematical tables; 9. Address of Henry Thomas Colebrooke on presenting the gold medal to Charles Babbage, 13th July, 1823; 10. On Mr Babbage's new machine for calculating and printing mathematical tables Francis Baily; 11. Minutes of the Council of the Royal Society, 12th February, 1829; 12. Report of the committee appointed by the Council of the Royal Society, February 1829; 13. On a method of expressing by signs, the action of machinery; 14. Laws of mechanical notation; 15. Mechanical notation Henry P. Babbage; 16. Scheutz's difference engine, and Babbage's mechanical notation; 17. Sur la machine Suédoise, de Messrs. Scheutz; 18. Observations addressed to the President and Fellows of the Royal Society, 30th November, 1865; 19. Letter of General Menabrea, to the editor of Cosmos, 20th April 1855; 20. Report to the Council of the Royal Society on the calculating engine of M. Scheutz; 21. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, January, 1857; 22. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, April, 1857; 23. Analytical engine, catalogue of 386 notations; 24. Classed catalogue of the notations of the analytical engine; 25. Catalogue of the drawings of the analytical engine; 26. List of other drawings of the analytical engine; 27. List of scribbling books; 28. Part of Chapter XIX, Economy of machinery and manufactures, 1832; 29. Excerpt from the ninth Bridgewater treatise; 30. Excerpt from the Exposition of 1851; 31. Proceedings of the British Association, 1878; 32. Proceedings of the British Association, 1888 Henry P. Babbage; Conclusion.