PIONEER OF THE COMPUTER: CHARLES BABBAGE

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14 Feb 2024

Charles Babbage Youth and Education

Charles Babbage was born on December 26, 1791 in London, England. There is some disagreement about Babbage's birthplace. However, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Babbage was born at 44 Crosby Row, Walworth Road, London, England.

He was one of the four children of Benjamin Babbage and Elizabeth Teape, who were bankers, bankers and very wealthy. Her father was a partner of Benjamin and William Praed. Praed was a famous British businessman, banker and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1774 to 1808.

When Babbage was only 8 years old, he had a serious febrile illness. This recurred frequently. He almost lost his life. On the advice of the family doctor, they moved to a rural area in Alphington, near Exeter, to help him recover from the fever.

Babbage continued his education here for a while and then entered VI King Edward School in Totnes. However, Babbage's health was deteriorating. For this reason, he eventually returned home and continued his education with private tutors who came to his home.

When his health improved a little, he entered the small Holmwood Academy in Enfield, Middlesex. This school had a very rich library. Babbage loved spending time there and it was in that library that his love for mathematics began to blossom.

At the age of 17, he started to learn a lot thanks to one of the Oxford University lecturers who came to the house. He wanted to enter Cambridge University and his teacher made him read and learn all the classics in order to be accepted to this school.

Cambridge University Times

Charles Babbage entered the Mathematics Department of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1810. In 1812 he transferred to Peterhause College, Cambridge, where he graduated with highest honors in 1814. He completed his master's degree in 1817.

While at Cambridge, he became a member of various societies. In the Society for Analytical Thought, he met with important names such as mathematician George Peacock and John Herschel. Herschel was a mathematician, inventor, chemist, astronomer and experimental photographer. One of the most important things he did was to introduce the Julian day system into astronomy.

Babbage also belonged to several interesting clubs, including the "Ghost Club", which investigated the supernatural, and "The Extractors Club", where members promised to rescue each other from the asylum if anyone committed a crime.

After his undergraduate studies, Charles Babbage became a lecturer at the Royal Institution. Here he started to lecture in the field of Astronomy. In 1816 he became a member of the "Royal Society", the National Academy of Sciences of the United Kingdom. In 1820 he helped found the Astronomical Society.

In 1824 he invented a device for calculating mathematical and astronomical tables. He was awarded a gold medal for this invention. From 1828 to 1839 he taught at the Lucasian chair of mathematics at Cambridge University.

What did Charles Babbage do?

Science was not an established profession at that time. There were some dominant beliefs that were ignorant of science and it was very difficult for people to accept innovations. But some scientists were a little luckier than others.

If a scientist was wealthy and self-funded, he or she could act more independently and freely. Charles Babbage was one of these lucky scientists; he was recognized by the people around him as a gentleman scientist.

Babbage's interests were varied and broad, even by the most generous standards of the day. Between 1813 and 1868 he published six works and about ninety papers. He was a prolific inventor, mathematician, scientist, reforming critic of the scientific establishment, and political economist.

He pioneered lighthouse signaling. He invented the ophthalmoscope to observe the retina, macula and optic disc. He proposed "black box" recorders to hone the conditions before or during railroad disasters.

He spent much of his life advocating decimal currency. He proposed tidal power to be used when coal reserves were depleted. He designed a cow catcher to prevent cow accidents on the railroad.
He invented or proposed safe quick-release couplings (power transmission systems) for wagons, an altimeter, a seismic detector, tugboats for ships, colored theater lighting, and much more.

Babbage's interests were also interesting. These included lock picking, passwords, chess, guns, diving instruments and submarines. Babbage was a colorful name and an important figure in his country's controversial scenes. This idiosyncratic personality, who loved to be recognized and in the limelight, thought that the Lucasian chair of mathematics at Cambridge was the only honor bestowed upon him. He did not find it enough, grumbling and regretting about it whenever he was in public.

The Difference Engine, the Ancestor of the Computer: Design of the Difference Engine

The Difference Engine is one of the most important icons in the history of computing and computing. In fact, the Difference Engine is the first known successful automatic calculator. This invention was the first thing that paved the way to the computer.

Babbage first had the idea of calculating mathematical tables mechanically in 1812. He wanted to do something with this idea and first built a small calculator that performed mathematical calculations to eight decimal places. In 1823, he received government support for the design of the "Difference Engine", a machine that calculated mathematical calculations up to 20 decimal places.

The Difference Engine was a highly digital device. At first glance, it looked like a calculator, but it was much more capable than a simple calculator. Even though the number of variables was high, it could perform operations one after the other. Moreover, it made even complex problems possible. For all these reasons, it was considered the ancestor of the computer.

The Difference Engine worked with discrete digits. Instead of binary digits (bits), these digits were represented by positions on the gears and were decimal. When one of the cogs turned from nine to zero, the next cog carried the digit, advancing one position. Just like modern computers, the Difference Engine had storage, a place where data was temporarily held for later processing.

Joseph Clement, Charles Babbage's engineer, built the part of the Difference Engine seen in the photo above in 1932. This device was assembled from about 2,000 parts and represents only 1 in 7 of the entire machine. Designed to be almost the size of a room, the Difference Engine was never built by Babbage.

In 1833, the design and construction was halted by Clement, who was responsible for building the machine, because he had not been paid. Thus, the machine was not completed and the 12,000 parts produced for its construction were scrapped.

The Successful Work of George Scheutz

After 1856, Babbage devoted much of his time and fortune to the construction of the Difference Engine, but he never managed to complete any of his various designs for it. In 1854, George Scheutz, a Swedish printer, successfully built a machine based on Babbage's designs for the Difference Engine.

This machine was able to print mathematical and astronomical tables with unprecedented accuracy. This machine was used by the British and then American governments. After his death, Babbage's work was continued by his son Henry Prevost Babbage. But the Difference Engine was never successfully completed.

Difference Engine Completed After Years

The Difference Engine was never finished. Babbage had received government support to build this huge engine he had designed. But here he encountered a problem. Unfortunately, the support did not arrive regularly.

In this situation, Babbage covered most of the cost himself. This was the reason why Clement stopped working in 1833 because he was not getting paid. The government payments were not coming in and Babbage could not afford Clement's money.

The Difference Engine was completed at his home in London 153 years after it was first conceived. In the project, they remained faithful to the original drawings. The result was a machine with 8 thousand parts, a weight of 5 tons and a length of 3 and a half meters. This device requires a lot of strength to operate and is on display at the Science Museum London.

The Personal Life and Death of Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage married Georgiana Whitmore in 1814 at the request of his father. The couple had eight children. Only three of them lived to adulthood. The couple moved from Portland Place to London in 1815. Although Babbage did not choose his wife and his marriage was not a love marriage, he was very happy in his married life.

However, he soon lost his father in 1827 and then experienced a great tragedy in his life. She lost her loved ones one by one. First his father, with whom he had a troubled relationship, then his second son Charles, his wife Georgiana and his newborn son.

Babbage was inconsolable. He devoted himself exclusively to his work. With the death of his father, he inherited an estate worth £100,000, an enormous sum for the time. Despite all his wealth, Babbage was never happy again and never married.

By the 1830s, Babbage had become a sought-after figure of social life in London. Especially on Saturday evenings, social life in London would be sparkling. Babbage's house in Dorset Street became the center of social and intellectual life.

Celebrities, socialites, writers, actors, scientists, bishops, bankers and industrialists came together in this house. Every Saturday evening, the latest developments in science, literature, philosophy and art were heard and discussed in this house. Babbage was famous in his circle as a storyteller and was a sought-after guest at dinner parties.

But diplomacy was not Babbage's forte. He had no talent for it. His personality was tough, proud and highly principled. He was a merciless critic of many scientific institutions and never regretted it. He even offended and alienated many people whose support he needed. He was rude when he was right. As if being right gave him the right to be rude.