Babbage, Charles (1791–1871)

Charles Babbage is best known as the Father of Computing, having formulated the idea of a mechanical calculator during his student days.

Babbage was born in London on Boxing Day, December 26, 1791. His father was a banker from Devon, and Babbage was educated in Totnes, with the family moving to Teignmouth in 1808. Babbage was a sickly child who therefore received much of his education from private tutors at home. One consequence was that, on arriving at Cambridge University in 1810, he was somewhat disappointed with the standards expected. In 1812, with fellow undergraduates, he established the Analytical Society with the aim of promoting the use of our modern notation for differential calculus over the Newtonian presentation then in vogue.

He graduated in 1814, the year of his marriage to Georgiana Whitmore (who died in 1827 following the birth of their eighth child—only three survived to adulthood). In 1816, following the publication of two major papers, and as a consequence of his work with the Analytical Society, Babbage was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1820, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was a founding member of what is now the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1828, he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University (a post he held until 1839). In 1834, the decision to found a statistics society (now the Royal Statistical Society) was made at his house.

Babbage conceived the notion of constructing a machine for automated calculations while at Cambridge, but it was not until 1822 that he completed a working model. This machine was able to calculate the values of n2 + n + 1 for successive values of n at the rate of 12 a minute. The machine worked by using differences: thus the successive values of n2 + n + 1 are 3,7,13,17,…, with constant differences of 4. The machine that Babbage conceived is therefore known as a difference engine. The initial model was well received, and Babbage received a grant to build a bigger, more powerful engine. However, as is so often the case with construction projects, the costs escalated enormously, and the project was finally abandoned in 1834.

Babbage then turned his attention to the construction of a more versatile analytical engine, which used punched cards adapted from a Jacquard loom (which [Page 70]enabled intricate woven patterns in cloth). The initial, 1835 design was for a machine five meters (16.4 feet) tall. For the next 10 years, the plans were refined, and it was at this time that Babbage corresponded with Ada, Countess of Lovelace, in the construction of algorithms for the embryonic machine—in other words, the world's first computer programs. Babbage died in London on October 18, 1871.