FREE ESSAY ON CHARLES BABBAGE

CHARLES BABBAGE

Charles Babbage is often called the father of computing because of his invention of the
Analytical Engine. However, many people do not know the details of this very important
man's life.
Charles Babbage was born on December 26, 1792, just about that same time that the
industrial revolution was beginning. He was born in Teignmouth, Devon shire. Although not
much is really known about his childhood, it is known that he had many brothers and
sisters, but many of them died before adulthood. It is also known that Babbage never
really played with his toys, instead, he would dissect them. 
When Babbage grew up he attended many new schools. He ended up at Forty Hill, where he
was famous for mischief but for some reason or another Babbage still studied. He did bad
things like carved his name in his desks, violated his curfew, and insult the minister's
sermons. He still found time to wake up with a friend at three in the morning and study
in the library until five-thirty. Frederick Marryat, Babbage's roommate and a future
novelist, joined his morning study group. When Marryat began to attend regularly he
started to bring more and more friends. And the once study group now became wild parties
that were eventually broken up by the school's head master. After both Marryat and
Babbage had become famous they loved to tell how they were deemed the two students most
likely never to amount to anything.
Babbage created his first invention, a type of shoes make of books that helped one walk
on water, at his father's summer home. This idea was good, but it didn't work, because he
would weave too much from side to side and eventually fall over.
It is told that in 1810, at the age of nineteen, Babbage went up to Trinity College,
Cambridge with some friends. Babbage studied grammar, literature, and many other
important lessons, but he found his obsession to be mathematics. He read many books on
the subject. Babbage's teachers frustrated him greatly though, because none of them could
ever answer his questions. He was very good at mathematics, especially calculus, and he
soon figured out that not one of his teachers knew as much about it as he did. And he was
very right about this.
Babbage and some other students formed the Analytical Society, where the Cambridge
mathematics department disliked all the students, but they continued on anyway, because
they wanted to make a difference. They noticed mistakes in earlier works and tried to
correct them all. They all wanted to, as Babbage so eloquently put, "Let us leave the
world a wiser one then we found." But making these corrections was time consuming and
Babbage got frustrated with it. He thought it would be really great if there was a
machine that could produce the right answers the first time, then there would be no human
error, and then they wouldn't have to correct anything. This is what started him on
building adding machines.
Babbage took many years thinking things out, but finally he built his first calculating
machine called the Difference Engine. It could print out the answers, but was limited to
the highness of the numbers. It was good for astronomers because it could create accurate
tables of star positions at certain dates. It was more accurate then human calculation
though, and it didn't make any silly mistakes. Which was very useful, but it was only a
prototype, Babbage never finished the real thing. He could never decide on one blueprint.
Babbage was always thinking of new ways to improve it. He ended up spending quite a great
deal of money (Britain's as well as his own family fortune) on this idea, but it did lead
to his next engine, and computer programming.
Once again, Babbage tried to invent an adding machine. This resulted in him creating the
Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine led to modern computers in three ways. First of
all there was the Punch card, which Babbage realized that functions could be placed on
similar cards so that all they had to do was create the right card, and anyone could put
it into the machine and set it to go. Babbage also devised two separate parts for the
Analytical Engine, one that was similar to a factory and the other to a retailer. Sadly,
the Analytical Engine was not even given much attention.
All of Babbage's work eventually led to better and easier machines that helped simplify
mathematics. His work also made human errors in calculations less and less. And even
though he never built a working computer, his designs and concepts really aided in the
development of calculators and computers. And where would we be today without inventions
like these that help make things easier in our lives. He truly opened many doors for what
we now have and we should be grateful. 
Charles Babbage died on October 18, 1871 in London a lonely, but brilliant man.
Bibliography
Works Cited
Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge. Volume 2. Ano-Bas. Page 321.
www.cbi.umn.edu/ (Look under Who was Charles Babbage?)
www.ex.ac.uk/BABBAGE/welcome.html (Look under biography and family)
www.museums.reading.ac.uk/vmoc/babbage/ (Look under biography)