Geek of the Month: Charles Babbage

At the end of each month, I will honor the movers and shakers of our digital world, a supreme individual or group that made our lives better through their great innovations.

I got inspired to write about people that I look up to or aspire to be after I’ve read Bo Sanchez’s article entitled “The Missing Link Of Success: Who Are Your Mentors?”. It talked about the importance of having a mentor, and so, by recognizing my so called “tech mentors” I get to know some things about their lives and perhaps learn the secrets of their success.

A geek is a person who is fascinated by knowledge and imagination, usually electronic or virtual in nature, one who is primarily motivated by passion, somebody whose reasoning and decision making is always first and foremost based on passions rather than things like financial reward or social acceptance. Geeks do not see the typical "geeky" interests as interesting, but as objects of passionate devotion.

The first ever “Geek of the Month” honour goes to the man who originated the idea of a programmable computer. His name is Charles Babbage. This may sound boring as most of you might be expecting names like Mr. Jobs or Mr. Gates. But without Sir Charles, you will never be reading this article today as personal computers may never exist at all. Here are some important facts that I have compiled about the man:

Charles Babbage (26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English mathematician, philosopher, and mechanical engineer. He was known to some as the "Father of Computing" for his contributions to the basic design of the computer through his Analytical machine. His previous Difference Engine(shown in the photo below) was a special purpose device intended for the production of tables.

Babbage originated the modern analytic computer.By 1834 he invented the principle of the analytical engine, the forerunner of the modern electronic computer. Parts of his uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the London Science Museum. In 1991 a perfectly functioning difference engine was constructed from Babbage's original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked. Nine years later, the Science Museum completed the printer Babbage had designed for the difference engine, an astonishingly complex device for the 19th century.

Lady Lovelace wrote that Babbage hated music. He tolerated its more exquisite forms, but abhorred it as practiced on the street. "Those whose minds are entirely unoccupied", he wrote with some seriousness in Observations of Street Nuisances in 1864, "receive [street music] with satisfaction, as filling up the vacuum of time". He calculated that 25% of his working power had been destroyed by street nuisances, many of them intentional. Letters to the Times and the eventual enforcement of "Babbage's Act", which would squelch street nuisances, made him the target of ridicule.

Babbage has been commemorated by a number of references, as shown on this list. In particular, Babbage crater, on the Moon and the Charles Babbage Institute, an information technology archive and research center, were named after him. The large Babbage lecture theatre at Cambridge University, used for undergraduate science lectures, commemorates his time at the school.

Significant Events in His Life:
1791: Born; 1810: Entered Trinity College, Cambridge; 1814: graduated Peterhouse; 1817 received MA from Cambridge; 1820: founded the Analytical Society with Herschel and Peacock; 1823: started work on the Difference Engine through funding from the British Government; 1827: published a table of logarithms from 1 to 108000; 1828: appointed to the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge (never presented a lecture); 1831: founded the British Association for the Advancement of Science; 1832: published "Economy of Manufactures and Machinery"; 1833: began work on the Analytical Engine; 1834: founded the Statistical Society of London; 1864: published Passages from the Life of a Philosopher; 1871: Died.

Other inventions:
The cowcatcher, dynamometer, standard railroad gauge, uniform postal rates, occulting lights for lighthouses, Greenwich time signals, heliograph opthalmoscope. He also had an interest in cyphers and lock-picking, but abhorred street musicians.

Quotations:
Some of my critics have amused their readers with the wildness of the schemes I have occasionally thrown out; and I myself have sometimes smiled along with them. Perhaps it were wiser for present reputation to offer nothing but profoundly meditated plans, but I do not think knowledge will be most advanced by that course; such sparks may kindle the energies of other minds more favorably circumstanced for pursuing the enquiries. (On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, 1832, preface to second edition.)

Every moment dies a man/Every moment 1 1/16 is born.
(A correction to Tennyson's "Ev'ry moment a man dies/Ev'ry moment one is born".)

If unwarned by my example, any man shall undertake and shall succeed in really constructing an engine ... upon difference principles or by simpler means, I have no fear of leaving my reputation in his charge, for he alone will be fully able to appreciate the nature of my efforts and the value of their results.

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Thanks to:
http://ei.cs.vt.edu
http://en.wikipedia.org