Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage was a British mathematician and computer scientist. He designed and developed a mechanical calculator capable of calculating tables of numerical functions by the method of differences. He also designed (but never built) the analytics to run tabulation or computational programs; Because of these inventions, he is considered one of the first people to conceive the idea of what we would call a computer today, which is why he is considered "The Father of Computers". Parts of his unfinished machinery are on display at the Science Museum in London. Part of his brain preserved in formalin is on display at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Site in London.

History

Early Years

There is debate over the date and place of Babbage's birth. First of all, according to the Dictionary of National Biography he was most likely born at 44 Crosby Row, Walworth in London, England. Regarding his date of birth, The Times published that Babbage was born on December 26, 1792 but a nephew of his he claimed it was a year earlier, 1791. The register of St. Mary's Parish in Newington states that Babbage was baptized on January 6, 1792, which may confirm that he was born a year earlier.

Babbage was the fourth child of Betsy Plumleigh Teape and Benjamin Babbage (a banking partner of businessman William Praed in founding Praed9s & Co.)

When Babbage was 8 years old he was sent to a day school in Alpington to recover from a dangerous fever. For a time he was able to attend Henry VI's school at Totnes, but his health forced him to continue to receive tuition from private tutors for a time.

It was after this that Babbage began attending an Academy in Enfield, London, where classes were taught by the Reverend Stephen Freeman. The library at this academy fueled Babbage's passion for mathematics. Before leaving this academy he studied at two private schools, the first was taught by a clergyman near Cambridge, through which he met English evangelical Charles Simeon, but it was not tutoring that Charles needed. The second school was an Oxford tutor, thanks to which Babbage acquired a sufficient level to be admitted to Cambridge. It was then that he was brought back home to study at a school at the age of 16 or 17.

At Cambridge University

In October 1810 Babbage arrived at Trinity College (Cambridge), having trained self-taught in contemporary mathematics (from readings by Robert Woodhouse, Joseph-Louis Lagrange and Maria Gaetana Agnesi). Consequently, he was very disappointed with the way mathematics was taught at the university.

In 1812, together with John Herschel, George Peacock and other friends, they formed the Analytical Society [1] At the same time, Babbage was a member of other associations such as The Ghost Club, an association for the investigation of paranormal phenomena and The Extractors Club focused on the release of the members of the asylum, should it ever happen.

In the same year Babbage was sent to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he was among the elite of mathematics but did not graduate with high marks but instead received his degree without taking an examination in 1814. He defended a thesis that was considered "blasphemy" in the public dispute, however it is not known if this was related to his failure to take an exam.

After Cambridge

Given his reputation, Babbage made rapid progress. He taught astronomy at the Royal Institution in 1815 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1816. However, when he sat for public examinations after graduation he was not accepted. In 1816 he was nominated to be a professor at Haileybury College, with letters of recommendation from James Ivory and John Playfair, but it was Henry Walter Bates who took the position. He Together with Herschel he visited Paris and the Arcueil Society in 1819, meeting on this trip the leading French mathematicians and physicists. That same year he applied to the University of Edinburgh on the recommendation of Pierre-Simon Laplace, losing again to William Wallace, a Scottish mathematician and astronomer.

Babbage purchased the actuarial tables of George Barrett, British actuary, who died in 1821 leaving unpublished works and studied the field in 1836 in "The Comparative View of Various Life Assurance Institutions" (Comparative View of the Various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives). Interest in this project was continued by the idea of creating an insurance company, promoted by Francis Baily, discussed in 1824 but never carried out.. However, Babbage did go so far as to calculate actuarial tables for that idea using society's mortality from the year 1792.

He and Edward Ryan married the Whitmore sisters, Babbage in the year 1814. They built a house for themselves in Marylebone, London and raised a large family. During all these years it was his father who always maintained his projects with some reluctance given his early marriage.

In 1827 his father died, which allowed him to inherit around £100,000 from that time, making him independent and wealthy. That same year his wife died and Babbage decided to embark on a year-long journey. On that trip he met Leopold II of Tuscany in Italy, scheduling a future meeting in Piedmont. On that trip he received the news that he had been accepted for the professorship at Cambridge, since he had been denied on three separate occasions.

Computer Design

Babbage tried to find a method by which calculations could be made automatically by a machine, eliminating errors due to fatigue or boredom suffered by the people in charge of compiling the mathematical tables of the time. He had this idea in 1812. Three factors seem to have motivated him: an aversion to disorder, his knowledge of logarithmic tables, and the work on calculating machines carried out by Blaise Pascal and Gottfried Leibniz. In 1822, in a letter to sir Humphry Davy on the application of machinery to the calculation and printing of mathematical tables, he discussed the principles of a calculating machine. He also designed a computer plan.

Analytical Engine

On the economy of machinery and manufactures, 1835

Between 1833 and 1842, Babbage tried again; this time, he tried to build a machine that was programmable to do any type of calculation, not just those related to calculating logarithmic tables or polynomial functions. This was the analitic machine. The design was based on Joseph Marie Jacquard's loom, which used punched cards to make designs on the fabric. Babbage adapted his design to be able to compute analytic functions. The Analytical Engine had input devices based on Jacquard punch cards, an arithmetic processor, which computed numbers, a control unit that determined what task was to be performed, an output mechanism, and a memory where numbers could be stored until they were read. processed. Babbage's analytical engine is considered to be the first computer in history. In 1835 he completed the initial fully functional design. However, due to problems similar to those of the Difference Engine, the Analytical Engine was never completed by Charles. In 1842, to obtain the necessary financing to carry out his project, Babbage contacted sir Robert Peel. Peel turned him down, and offered Babbage a knighthood which Babbage refused. Lady Ada Lovelace, a mathematician and daughter of Lord Byron, heard of Babbage's efforts and became interested in his machine. She actively promoted the Analytical Engine, and wrote several programs for the Analytical Engine. Some historians claim that these instructions make Ada Lovelace the first computer programmer in history.

Plans of the modern printer

Charles Babbage has been considered by some to be the father of modern computers, but he can certainly also be considered the father of modern printers. More than 150 years after his plans and painstaking work by the London Science Museum, resulted in the construction of the Analytical Engine . The plans of the mathematician and scientist included a printing component, which has been reconstructed by the Museum and is functional. This printer consists of 8,000 mechanical parts and weighs approximately 2.5 tons.

It was so innovative for its time and we can appreciate it today, that it is capable of automatically printing the results of a calculation and a user can change parameters such as space between lines, choose between two fonts, number of columns and others. Its sophistication reaches such a point that it can generate (manufacture) printing molds that could be used by printers even today. This printer unfortunately does not have a name since Babbage included it in his plans for the Analytical Engine, but it is enough to refer to it as Babbage's printer to recognize in this man a visionary.

Calculus promotion

Babbage is remembered for other achievements as well. The promotion of calculus is perhaps the first among them. In 1812 Babbage founded the Analytical Society. The primary task of this society, led by student Robert Woodhouse, was to promote Leibnizian calculus, or analytic calculus, over the Newtonian style of calculus. Newton's calculation was clumsy and approximate, and was used more for political than practical reasons. The Analytical Society included sir John Herschel and George Peacock among its members. In the years 1815-1817 he contributed to the "calculus of functions" of the Philosophical Transactions -philosophical transactions-, and in 1816 he was made a member of the Royal Academy.

Cryptography

Charles Babbage also achieved remarkable results in cryptography. He broke the self-key Vigenère cipher, as well as the much weaker cipher called the Vigenère cipher today. The cipher on the car key was called "the indecipherable cipher", although due to popular confusion many thought that the weaker non-alphabetic cipher was indecipherable. Babbage's discovery was used in English military campaigns, and was considered a military secret. As a result, the credit for cracking this key was given to Friedrich Kasiski, who also cracked this cryptographic system some years later.

Economics, Babbage's principle

Published "On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures" (On the economy of machinery and manufactures) (1832), on the organization and rational design of industrial production. The book sold well and had an impact on operations research, which was then an incipient discipline. In it he described what is now known as Babbage's principle , aimed at achieving commercial advantages from a more careful division of labor. In his own words:

Dividing total work in different processes, each of which requires different degrees of skill or strength, the pattern can buy exactly the exact amount of both (force and skill) that is necessary for each process. While if all the work was executed by a single worker, it must possess sufficient skill to perform the most difficult part and, at the same time, enough force to execute the most laborious part.

In other words, he warned that skilled workers often spend part of their time doing tasks that are below their valuable specific competencies. If these tasks are efficiently divided among multiple workers, labor costs can be dramatically reduced by assigning only high-skill tasks to the highest-paid workers, and restricting other tasks to lower-paid workers. This would not by itself improve worker productivity, but it would improve their profitability.

Other achievements

From 1828 to 1839 Babbage was Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. He wrote articles in different scientific journals, and was an active member of the Astronomical Society —astronomical society— in 1820 and of the Statistical Society —statistical society— in 1834. During the last years of his life he lived in London, dedicating himself to the construction of machines capable of performing arithmetic operations and algebraic calculations.

He proposed the postage system we use today. Until then the cost of sending a letter depended on the distance it had to travel; Babbage noted that the cost of labor required to calculate the price of each letter exceeded the cost of postage for it and proposed a single cost for each letter regardless of where in the country it was sent.

He was the first to point out that the width of a tree ring depended on the weather that year, so it would be possible to deduce past climates by studying ancient trees.

Invented the cow shunt, a device attached to the front of steam locomotives to keep cows off the railroad tracks.

He also took an interest in political and social issues and began a campaign to get rid of London's organ grinders and buskers, though they counterattacked and rallied around his house playing as loud as they could.

Eponymy

• The moon crater Babbage bears this name in his memory.
• The asteroid (11341) Babbage also commemorates its name.