Charles Babbage - Father of Computing

"Another age must be the judge", said the gentleman of science. And another age judged him, with great respect and gratitude for the legacy. As an extraordinarily talented scientist, mathematician, economist, and engineer, he's best known today (as he was in his lifetime) for inventing two types of cogwheel calculating machines. His Difference Engine Number 1 was the first device ever devised that could calculate and print mathematical tables. During the mid of the 1830s, Babbage developed plans for the Analytical Engine. Although it was never completed, the Analytical Engine would have had most of the basic elements of the present-day computer.

Science was not an established profession, and Babbage, like many of his contemporaries, was a “gentleman scientist”, an independently wealthy amateur well able to support his interests from his own means. He pioneered lighthouse signalling, invented the ophthalmoscope, proposed 'black box' recorders for monitoring the conditions preceding railway catastrophes, designed a cow-catcher for the front end of railway locomotives and the rest of the list is long.

When he wasn't busy inventing, Babbage engaged in cryptography, wrote books of social criticism, and he was very well known for his ability to criticize the scientific establishment without limits. The title of the first biography on his life was called "Irascible Genius: A Life of Charles Babbage, Inventor".

Babbage won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society “for his invention of an engine for calculating mathematical and astronomical tables” in 1824. He's also known for his collaboration with mathematician Ada Lovelace. She was inspired by the prototype of the Difference Engine and became Babbage's lifelong friend. Our next post will be dedicated to her.