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Tech Throwback: Charles Babbage Unveils The Difference Engine

Known as the father of the computer, Charles Babbage officially unveiled the Difference Engine on 14th June 1822. Read this article to learn more about Babbage’s Difference Engine that was far ahead of its time.

 

Charles Babbage was a mechanical engineer who pursued his interests in mathematics and philosophy. It was his passion for calculating complex numbers and experience as an engineer that led him to design the first mechanical computer.

 

This invention, a Difference Engine, that Babbage had in mind would work as a mechanical calculator. He was aiming to use it to tabulate polynomial functions using a method known as dividing differences. The Difference Engine would solve many complex problems in mathematics because they can calculate most of them using polynomials.

 

Thus, Charles Babbage’s machine would spur a mathematical revolution. This is because logarithm and trigonometric functions that mathematicians spent long durations solving would have been made easier. It took him three years between 1819 and 1822 to complete a smaller version of this device and he announced it to the Royal Astronomical Society (RSA).

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The British government bought the idea and asked him to design a fully functional Difference Engine. Historians claim that the government gave Charles Babbage £1700 to commence. However, he was unable to achieve the machine he dreamed of.  Instead, he managed to make a small model in 1832 (more capable than his original concept of 1922).

 

Developing the Difference Engine during that period was difficult because: the government stopped funding the project after they spent over what they thought was enough; also, the metal works needed for it to function at the time had not reached the required level of precision.

 

Charles Babbage had also started nurturing the idea of an Analytic Engine. He first described the working principles of this device in 1837, five years after he made the smaller version of the difference engine. Babbage’s Analytic Engine used many of the ideas that the modern era computers used such as: arithmetic logic unit, control flow, loops, and integrated memory.

 

In 1991, a group of scientists designed a fully functional Difference Engine to prove that Babbage’s design was right.

 

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Onwuasoanya Obinna

A reader of books and stringer of words. Passionate about Science and Tech. When not writing or reading he is surfing the web and Tweeting.

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