Famous Mathematicians

Charles Babbage

Born: 26 Dec 1791 in London, England
Died: 18 Oct 1871 in London, England

Since his father was fairly wealthy, he could afford to have Babbage educated at private schools. He began to show a passion for mathematics and after leaving school, he continued to study at home, having an Oxford tutor to bring him up to university level.

Babbage entered Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1810.

Babbage became engrossed in what was to become the main passion of his life, namely the development of mechanical computers.

Babbage is without doubt the originator of the concepts behind the present day computer. The computation of logarithms had made him aware of the inaccuracy of human calculation around 1812. Babbage began to construct a small difference engine in 1819 and had completed it by 1822.

By 1834 Babbage had completed the first drawings of an analytical engine, the forerunner of the modern electronic computer. Although the analytic engine never progressed beyond detailed drawings, it is remarkably similar in logical components to a present day computer.

Although Babbage never built an operational, mechanical computer, his design concepts have been proved correct and recently
such a computer has been built following Babbage's own design criteria.