Charles babbage - Father of Computing.

Charles Babbage - Father of Computing.

Birth of Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage was born on December 26, 1791

He was most likely born at 44 Crosby Row, Walworth Road London, England.

Family Background of Charles Babbage

Babbage's father, Benjamin Babbage, was a banking partner of the Praeds who owned the Bitton Estate in Teignmouth. His mother was Betsy Plumleigh Teape.

In 1808, the Babbage family moved into the old Rowdens house in East Teignmouth, and Benjamin Babbage became a warden of the nearby St. Michael's Church.

In 1814, Charles Babbage married Georgiana Whitmore at St. Michael's Church in Teignmouth, Devon.

Only three of their 8 children became adult.

Tragically, Charles' father, his wife and one of his sons all died in 1827.

Education of Charles Babbage

Around the age of eight he was sent to a country school to recover from a life-threatening fever.

His parents ordered that his "brain was not to be taxed too much " and Babbage felt that "this great idleness may have led to some of his childish reasoning's.“

For a short time he attended School in Totnes, South Devon, but his health forced him back to private tutors for a time.

 He then joined a 30-student Holmwood academy. The academy had a well-stocked library that prompted Babbage's love of mathematics.

Babbage arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1810.

He was the top mathematician at Peterhouse, but did not graduate with honours.

Achievements of BabbageCharles Babbage was an English mathematician,

philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer.

Considered a “father of the computer“.

Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs.

In 1824, Babbage won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society "for his invention of an engine for calculating mathematical and astronomical tables".

Difference Engine invented by Charles Babbage

Around the time of 1820, he formulated the general idea of the first Difference Engine.

The Difference Engine invention would later spark the ideas of other inventions soon to come.

Babbage proposed the idea of the Engine to the RAS in after publishing it in June of 1822, and The Society approved the idea, prompting the government to grant £1500 for its construction in 1823.

Babbage’s difference engine

Part of Babbage’s difference engine

Analytical EngineLater, in 1835, Babbage developed the design for the

Analytical engine, an constantly tried to improve it’s design, and never was able to get grant to build his machine.

Between October 1846 and March 1849, Charles started making the Second difference engine, and he did not try to improve the design like he did for the Analytical Engine.

The Second Different Engine used only about 8000 parts, three times fewer than the first.

Babbage’s Analytical Engine

Design of ComputersIn 1812 he was sitting in his rooms in the Analytical Society looking at a table of logarithms, which he knew to be full of mistakes, when the idea occurred to him of computing all tabular functions by machinery.

The French government had produced several tables by a new method.

Three or four of their mathematicians decided how to compute the tables, half a dozen more broke down the operations into simple stages, and the work itself, which was restricted to addition and subtraction, was done by eighty [human] computers who knew only these two arithmetical processes.

Here, for the first time, mass production was applied to arithmetic, and Babbage was seized by the idea that the labours of the unskilled computers could be taken over completely by machinery which would be quicker and more reliable.

Babbage's machines were among the first mechanical computers, although they were not actually completed, largely because of funding problems and personality issues.

He directed the building of some steam-powered machines that achieved some success, suggesting that calculations could be mechanised.

Although Babbage's machines were mechanical and unwieldy, their basic architecture was very similar to a modern computer.

The data and program memory were separated, operation was instruction-based, the control unit could make conditional jumps, and the machine had a separate input/output unit. 

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Showing method of differences

Part of difference engine

Sketch of difference engine

Other AchievementsHe was a founding member of the society and one of its oldest living members on his death in 1871.

Babbage was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1832.

 In 1837, responding to the Bridgewater Treatises, of which there were eight, he published his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, on the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation, putting forward the thesis that God had the omnipotence and foresight to create as a divine legislator, making laws (or programs) which then produced species at the appropriate times, rather than continually interfering with ad hoc miracles each time a new species was required. 

Contribution to historyOne of the first contributions to history made by Babbage, was his interest in astronomical study.

Charles was the co-founder of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in the year of 1820, that still now exists, and is the UK’s leading professional body fir.