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Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia
EMu user since 2002
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More than 150 years ago, the English mathematician, inventor, philosopher and
reformer Charles Babbage designed a general-purpose mechanical calculating
machine that anticipated the principles and structure of the modern computer.
In 1823 he commenced work on his Difference Engine No 1, a fully automatic
machine that would calculate and print the tables used in the burgeoning fields
of science, navigation and business. His aim was to relieve people of
"routine mental labour" and eliminate human error in calculations with
a perfect machine.
The Difference Engine was designed to produce
successive values of a polynomial function using the Method of Finite Differences,
a method that reduces a calculation to a series of additions. Once the initial values
were entered into the machine the operator, in theory, only needed to turn the handle
to generate the tables. Most significantly, the operator did not need to know any
mathematics.
Babbage worked on the Difference Engine No 1 for eleven years but was never able
to complete it for a number of reasons, including the strain and expense of having to develop new manufacturing
machining techniques, personality clashes especially with his engineer, the
death of his wife and several of his children and the general lack of
understanding of his project.
He was perhaps also distracted by plans for a more ambitious machine, the Analytical Engine, a machine capable of finding
values for any algebraic function. Like the modern computer it was to be a general
purpose, programmable machine in which the storage of information was a separate
function to the processing of information. The analytical engine was never built
and the ideas Babbage developed had to wait another 100 years to be rediscovered.
While Babbage did not successfully complete any of his engines, his efforts
had profound impact in other ways, particularly in the "mechanical arts" and on
the organisation of manufacturing processes.
In 1879 Charles Babbage's son Henry assembled this portion of the Difference
Engine from original parts after his father's death. It was one of six specimens
constructed to demonstrate the addition and carry mechanism. The Powerhouse
Museum acquired it in 1995 and it is on dipslay in Cyberworlds.
Purchased: 1996
Collection: Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.
Photographer: Scott Donkin, PHM.
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