11/22/02
Ellsworth High School
Calculus
Charles Babbage was born on December 26, 1791 in London, England, although some sources differ on whether it was 1791 or 1792. He was the son of a banker, so the family was somewhat rich. Because they had the money to do so, Babbage was taught mainly at private schools. He attended schools at Alphington, Middlesex, and Trinity College in Cambridge. However, he did not like the way mathematics was taught at Trinity College because they followed Newton’s calculus. Babbage much preferred the techniques that Leibniz discovered.
This dislike of Newton’s methods led
Babbage to create the Analytical Society in 1812. Several other famous mathematicians were a
part of this group, including John Herschel and George Peacock. They published many works on the subject of
math, and eventually succeeded in changing the way some schools taught
calculus. Babbage personally wrote some
of these works, but some of the others he wrote have been proven wrong. Babbage then transferred to Peterhouse
College and graduated from there in 1814.
After graduating, Babbage married
Georgiana Whitmore. Eventually they
would have eight children, but only three of them survived childhood. He was elected to the Royal Society of
London, and then to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1825, Babbage became the Lucasian
Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the school he had despised earlier in
life. However, he never actually taught
a class there, even though he was a professor.
He spent most of his time thinking about and developing what would be
his greatest achievement.
Charles Babbage is most definitely
the man who came up with the ideas that led to modern computers. He was driven to do this by his hatred of
figuring mathematical tables. He
believed that these tables could be figured by machinery instead of by teams of
people, saving time and money. Machinery
would also make the tables completely accurate.
Over the next few years he drew the parts more precisely and planned out
how such a thing would work. In 1822,
Babbage had completely built a model of his Difference Engine, a machine that
through addition could do complex operations.
For example, the function n^2 + n + 1 gives results of 1, 3, 7, 13, 21,
and so on. The differences between those
numbers are 2, 4, 6, and 8, and the differences between those numbers are all
2. Next, through punched cards, Babbage
would put 2, 0, and 1 into the Difference Engine. Then the machine would figure the next numbers
in the sequence by calculating 2, (0+2), [1+(0+2)], giving the result of
3. The next result was found by adding
two to the numbers in parentheses and replacing the original number with the
previous result. The next row would then
be 2, (2+2), [3+(2+2)] if it were written out.
This was all done by large metal rollers, crank-driven shafts, and lots
of gears. His model was correct to eight
decimal places, but the full-scale Engine would go to twenty decimals. However, he never got to actually build one
because he ran out of funding.
Out of the Difference Engine,
Babbage came up with a much greater idea.
It would become known as the Analytical Engine. In theory, it would have been able to do many
different operations by using several storage mechanisms. The Analytical Engine would consist of the
store, the mill, the control, the input, and the output. Many of these parts are very similar in
function to today’s computers. The store
could hold up to one hundred forty-digit numbers that would then go to the
mill. Then the results found in the mill
were taken back to the store. Then they
could be used again or printed out. The
store was like a hard drive, the mill was a processor, and the input was the
punch cards. Babbage also drew a printer
for the device, but it was never built either.
The furthest Babbage progressed on the Analytical Engine was detailed
drawings. He died on October 18, 1871 in
London.
Although Babbage never completed
either of his two Engines, the Difference Engine was successfully built in
later years by Dr. Allan Bromley and a team of scientists. Babbage had other accomplishments as
well. He helped design the modern postal
system in England, invented a speedometer, the locomotive cowcatcher, and
because of some strange dislike of organ-grinders, tried to rid the streets of
London of their kind. However, his two
greatest accomplishments are helping to introduce the Leibniz notation to the
modern world and changing the world by in essence creating the world’s first
computer. Charles Babbage was indeed a
great man and mathematician, hindered only by the lack of technology during his
lifetime.
Bibliography
"Babbage,
Charles." The New Encyclopedia Britannica. 15th ed. Encyclopedia
Britannica, 1993.
Charles Babbage. 20 Oct. 2002
<http://www.kerryr.net/pioneers/babbage.htm>.
O'Connor, J J. Babbage.
13 Nov. 2002
<http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Babbage.html>.
The Babbage Pages. 20 Oct. 2002
<http://www.ex.ac.uk/BABBAGE/biograph.html>.
Wilson,
John H. "Babbage." The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Biography.
New York, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973.