Charles Babbage (London, 26 December 1791 [1] - London, 18
October 1871 [1]) was a British mathematician and philosopher, proto-computer
scientist who first had the idea of a programmable computer. In the world of
computing it is known thanks to its machines: the first, the machine
differential, was a prototype imperfect while the second, the Analytical
Engine, was only designed.
Parts of the mechanisms of incomplete Babbage are on display
at the Science Museum in London. In 1991, working from its original plans, it
was completed a machine differential fully functional, assembled following the
standards available in the nineteenth century, which means that Babbage's
machine would have worked.
Faced with the high number of errors in the calculation of
mathematical tables, Babbage decided to find a method by which these could be
calculated by a machine, which is not subject to errors, fatigue and boredom
that could be imposed on human calculators. This idea came to him as early as
1812. It seems that Babbage was influenced by three factors: aversion to
clutter, familiar with log tables and work on calculating machines carried out
by Blaise Pascal and Gottfried Leibniz.
