What is charles babbage best known for?

Charles Babbage 26 December — 18 October was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who developed the concept of a programmable computer. Babbage was born in London, England in As a child, he had a variety of tutors and schools and developed a love of mathematics. In , he was accepted to Trinity College, Cambridge.

Charles babbage born

He later transferred to Peterhouse, Cambridge where he received an honorary degree in mathematics. At Cambridge, he was dissappointed by the quality of the maths teaching, but joined the Analytical Society — a group of like minded students, interested in exploring issues of mathematics. It was as a student that he conceived of an idea to try and do calculations with a machine.

It was after looking at a table for logarithms, many of which were wrong that he thought it would be better to try and work them out systematically. Herschel … brought with him the calculations of the computers, and we commenced the tedious process of verification. This was partly because of his personality, and also because his funding often dried up.

There was often a frosty relationship between Babbage and those he was trying to impress. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?

Charles babbage children

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. Babbage , Passages from the Life of a Philosopher , ch. A printer designed by Babbage was later built too. After graduation, he worked as a maths lecturer at Cambridge. He was also employed by the government to build a programmable computer.