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79-545: Benjamin Herschel Babbage (6 August 1815 – 22 October 1878) was an English engineer, scientist, explorer and politician, best known for his work in the colony of South Australia. He invariably signed his name "B. Herschel Babbage" and was frequently referred to as "Herschel Babbage". He was the son of English mathematician and inventor, Charles Babbage . Babbage was born in London, the eldest son of Charles Babbage ,
158-550: A broader syllabus and more interest in applications; but William Whewell found the programme unacceptable. A controversy Babbage had with Richard Jones lasted for six years. He never did give a lecture. It was during this period that Babbage tried to enter politics. Simon Schaffer writes that his views of the 1830s included disestablishment of the Church of England , a broader political franchise , and inclusion of manufacturers as stakeholders. He twice stood for Parliament as
237-531: A candidate for the borough of Finsbury . In 1832 he came in third among five candidates, missing out by some 500 votes in the two-member constituency when two other reformist candidates, Thomas Wakley and Christopher Temple, split the vote. In his memoirs Babbage related how this election brought him the friendship of Samuel Rogers : his brother Henry Rogers wished to support Babbage again, but died within days. In 1834 Babbage finished last among four. In 1832, Babbage, Herschel and Ivory were appointed Knights of
316-708: A conventional resident don , and inattentive to his teaching responsibilities, he wrote three topical books during this period of his life. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1832. Babbage was out of sympathy with colleagues: George Biddell Airy , his predecessor as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, thought an issue should be made of his lack of interest in lecturing. Babbage planned to lecture in 1831 on political economy . Babbage's reforming direction looked to see university education more inclusive, universities doing more for research,
395-470: A divine legislator. In this book, Babbage dealt with relating interpretations between science and religion; on the one hand, he insisted that "there exists no fatal collision between the words of Scripture and the facts of nature;" on the other hand, he wrote that the Book of Genesis was not meant to be read literally in relation to scientific terms. Against those who said these were in conflict, he wrote "that
474-504: A fast and lifelong friendship with Herschel and with Babbage, who was then quite young. I would ask any fair-minded mathematician to read Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise and compare it with the works of his contemporaries in England; and then ask himself whence came the peculiar conception of the nature of miracle which underlies Babbage's ideas of Singular Points on Curves (Chap, viii) – from European Theology or Hindu Metaphysic? Oh! how
553-740: A geological and mineralogical survey of the colony of South Australia requested by the colony's government. Babbage arrived in South Australia on 27 November on the Hydaspes , and over the next few years worked on a number of government projects, first setting up the Government Gold Assay Office in Victoria Square. He was appointed Justice of the Peace in 1852. In January 1853 he was appointed Chief Engineer by
632-659: A later visit to Piedmont . In April 1828 he was in Rome , and relying on Herschel to manage the difference engine project, when he heard that he had become a professor at Cambridge, a position he had three times failed to obtain (in 1820, 1823 and 1826). Babbage was instrumental in founding the Royal Astronomical Society in 1820, initially known as the Astronomical Society of London. Its original aims were to reduce astronomical calculations to
711-508: A meeting hosted by John Chapman to campaign against the Booksellers Association, still a cartel . It has been written that "what Arthur Young was to agriculture, Charles Babbage was to the factory visit and machinery". Babbage's theories are said to have influenced the layout of the 1851 Great Exhibition , and his views had a strong effect on his contemporary George Julius Poulett Scrope . Karl Marx argued that
790-401: A more standard form, and to circulate data. These directions were closely connected with Babbage's ideas on computation, and in 1824 he won its Gold Medal , cited "for his invention of an engine for calculating mathematical and astronomical tables ". Babbage's motivation to overcome errors in tables by mechanisation had been a commonplace since Dionysius Lardner wrote about it in 1834 in
869-482: A nephew wrote to say that Babbage was born one year earlier, in 1791. The parish register of St. Mary's , Newington , London, shows that Babbage was baptised on 6 January 1792, supporting a birth year of 1791. Babbage was one of four children of Benjamin Babbage and Betsy Plumleigh Teape. His father was a banking partner of William Praed in founding Praed's & Co. of Fleet Street , London, in 1801. In 1808,
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#1732764854337948-514: A principle openly borrowed from the Jacquard loom . Babbage had a broad range of interests in addition to his work on computers covered in his 1832 book Economy of Manufactures and Machinery . He was an important figure in the social scene in London, and is credited with importing the "scientific soirée" from France with his well-attended Saturday evening soirées . His varied work in other fields has led him to be described as "pre-eminent" among
1027-402: A translation from French of the lectures of Sylvestre Lacroix , which was then the state-of-the-art calculus textbook. Reference to Lagrange in calculus terms marks out the application of what are now called formal power series . British mathematicians had used them from about 1730 to 1760. As re-introduced, they were not simply applied as notations in differential calculus . They opened up
1106-888: A uniform rate that was put into effect with the introduction of the Uniform Fourpenny Post supplanted by the Uniform Penny Post in 1839 and 1840. Colby was another of the founding group of the Society. He was also in charge of the Survey of Ireland . Herschel and Babbage were present at a celebrated operation of that survey, the remeasuring of the Lough Foyle baseline. The Analytical Society had initially been no more than an undergraduate provocation. During this period it had some more substantial achievements. In 1816, Babbage, Herschel and Peacock published
1185-531: Is a Divine energy which overrides what we familiarly call the laws of nature." He alluded to the limits of human experience, expressing: "all that we see in a miracle is an effect which is new to our observation, and whose cause is concealed. The cause may be beyond the sphere of our observation, and would be thus beyond the familiar sphere of nature; but this does not make the event a violation of any law of nature. The limits of man's observation lie within very narrow boundaries, and it would be arrogance to suppose that
1264-531: Is an inherent assumption in Frederick Winslow Taylor 's scientific management . Mary Everest Boole claimed that there was profound influence – via her uncle George Everest – of Indian thought in general and Indian logic , in particular, on Babbage and on her husband George Boole , as well as on Augustus De Morgan : Think what must have been the effect of the intense Hinduizing of three such men as Babbage, De Morgan, and George Boole on
1343-493: Is that skilled workers typically spend parts of their time performing tasks that are below their skill level. If the labour process can be divided among several workers, labour costs may be cut by assigning only high-skill tasks to high-cost workers, restricting other tasks to lower-paid workers. He also pointed out that training or apprenticeship can be taken as fixed costs; but that returns to scale are available by his approach of standardisation of tasks, therefore again favouring
1422-472: The Edinburgh Review (under Babbage's guidance). The context of these developments is still debated. Babbage's own account of the origin of the difference engine begins with the Astronomical Society's wish to improve The Nautical Almanac . Babbage and Herschel were asked to oversee a trial project, to recalculate some part of those tables. With the results to hand, discrepancies were found. This
1501-667: The Flinders Ranges , when he discovered the MacDonnell River , Blanchewater and Mount Hopeful (renamed Mount Babbage after him in 1857 by George Goyder ). Going beyond the frontier reached in 1851 by explorers John Oakden and Henry Hulkes, Babbage also disproved the notion that Lake Torrens was a single horseshoe-shaped lake or inland sea, ascertaining a number of gaps in the lake, which were later traversed other explorers such as Augustus Gregory and Peter Warburton . On 15 June 1858 near Pernatty Creek he discovered
1580-921: The Grecian on 24 September 1849 and worked a farm on Goodwood Road. He worked as assistant to his brother in the Assay Office in 1852, helped found the Adelaide Philosophical Society in 1853 and in 1854 surveyed the route of the proposed Port Adelaide to Adelaide railway. Herschel, while protective of his less able younger brother, despaired of his propensity to mix with social inferiors and his fondness for drink. He married Anne Lea at Sturt on 7 March 1854. Their children included: Tee, Garry. "Charles Babbage's Contributions to Statistics" (PDF) . Charles Babbage Charles Babbage KH FRS ( / ˈ b æ b ɪ dʒ / ; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871)
1659-533: The Mortlock Library . He announced his candidature for the 1877 Legislative Council elections but refused to participate in any public meetings and did not go to the polls. and failed to win a seat. His last years were spent building a mansion near South Road, St Mary's , where he had an excellent vineyard and was a keen winemaker (nine varieties on 25 acres in 1878). He called the mansion The Rosary , but locals referred to it as Babbage's Castle . It
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#17327648543371738-696: The Royal Guelphic Order , however they were not subsequently made knights bachelor to entitle them to the prefix Sir , which often came with appointments to that foreign order (though Herschel was later created a baronet ). Babbage now emerged as a polemicist . One of his biographers notes that all his books contain a "campaigning element". His Reflections on the Decline of Science and some of its Causes (1830) stands out, however, for its sharp attacks. It aimed to improve British science, and more particularly to oust Davies Gilbert as President of
1817-498: The South Australian House of Assembly in the inaugural election in 1857 , representing the electorate of Encounter Bay . He resigned late in the year after being appointed to lead an expedition to explore the north of the colony between Lake Torrens and Lake Gairdner. He was replaced by Henry Strangways in a by-election. Babbage began his exploration of South Australia in 1856 when sent to search for gold up to
1896-702: The Statistical Society followed. Babbage was its public face, backed by Richard Jones and Robert Malthus . Babbage published On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1832), on the organisation of industrial production . It was an influential early work of operational research . John Rennie the Younger in addressing the Institution of Civil Engineers on manufacturing in 1846 mentioned mostly surveys in encyclopaedias, and Babbage's book
1975-475: The University of Edinburgh , with the recommendation of Pierre Simon Laplace ; the post went to William Wallace . With Herschel, Babbage worked on the electrodynamics of Arago's rotations , publishing in 1825. Their explanations were only transitional, being picked up and broadened by Michael Faraday . The phenomena are now part of the theory of eddy currents , and Babbage and Herschel missed some of
2054-493: The exponential map ). But via Herschel he was influenced by Arbogast's ideas in the matter of iteration , i.e. composing a function with itself, possibly many times. Writing in a major paper on functional equations in the Philosophical Transactions (1815/6), Babbage said his starting point was work of Gaspard Monge . From 1828 to 1839, Babbage was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Not
2133-444: The factory system . His view of human capital was restricted to minimising the time period for recovery of training costs. Another aspect of the work was its detailed breakdown of the cost structure of book publishing. Babbage took the unpopular line, from the publishers' perspective, of exposing the trade's profitability. He went as far as to name the organisers of the trade's restrictive practices. Twenty years later he attended
2212-667: The 1840s, he also worked with Isambard Kingdom Brunel , the son of his father's friend Marc Isambard Brunel , on railway planning and building in Italy and England. Babbage married Laura Jones at Bristol on 10 September 1839. The couple had seven children. In 1850, Babbage was invited by Patrick Brontë (clergyman and father of the Brontë sisters ) to conduct an inspection in the West Yorkshire town of Haworth , partly brought about by Haworth's high rate of early mortality. Babbage
2291-588: The 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked. Babbage's birthplace is disputed, but according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography he was most likely born at 44 Crosby Row, Walworth Road , London, England. A blue plaque on the junction of Larcom Street and Walworth Road commemorates the event. His date of birth was given in his obituary in The Times as 26 December 1792; but then
2370-837: The Almighty which afterwards so much disgusted me in my youthful years. Rejecting the Athanasian Creed as a "direct contradiction in terms", in his youth he looked to Samuel Clarke 's works on religion, of which Being and Attributes of God (1704) exerted a particularly strong influence on him. Later in life, Babbage concluded that "the true value of the Christian religion rested, not on speculative [theology] ... but ... upon those doctrines of kindness and benevolence which that religion claims and enforces, not merely in favour of man himself but of every creature susceptible of pain or of happiness." In his autobiography Passages from
2449-694: The Babbage family moved into the old Rowdens house in East Teignmouth . Around the age of eight, Babbage was sent to a country school in Alphington near Exeter to recover from a life-threatening fever. For a short time, he attended King Edward VI Grammar School in Totnes , South Devon, but his health forced him back to private tutors for a time. Babbage then joined the 30-student Holmwood Academy , in Baker Street, Enfield , Middlesex , under
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2528-584: The Bank of Adelaide he started speculating on the Stock Exchange and losing money. On 1 July 1876 he was charged with embezzling £1616, and in September was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for that and passing a fraudulent cheque. During his internment his wife ran their home as a boarding house for students of Prince Alfred College and ran drawing classes. His family moved to New Zealand in 1881. He
2607-642: The Creator ever open to our examination, we possess a firm basis on which to raise the superstructure of an enlightened creed. The more man inquires into the laws which regulate the material universe, the more he is convinced that all its varied forms arise from the action of a few simple principles ... The works of the Creator, ever present to our senses, give a living and perpetual testimony of his power and goodness far surpassing any evidence transmitted through human testimony. The testimony of man becomes fainter at every stage of transmission, whilst each new inquiry into
2686-567: The English clergy of that day hated Babbage's book! Babbage was raised in the Protestant form of the Christian faith, his family having inculcated in him an orthodox form of worship. He explained: My excellent mother taught me the usual forms of my daily and nightly prayer; and neither in my father nor my mother was there any mixture of bigotry and intolerance on the one hand, nor on the other of that unbecoming and familiar mode of addressing
2765-455: The Life of a Philosopher (1864), Babbage wrote a whole chapter on the topic of religion, where he identified three sources of divine knowledge: He stated, on the basis of the design argument , that studying the works of nature had been the more appealing evidence, and the one which led him to actively profess the existence of God . Advocating for natural theology, he wrote: In the works of
2844-553: The Reverend Stephen Freeman. The academy had a library that prompted Babbage's love of mathematics. He studied with two more private tutors after leaving the academy. The first was a clergyman near Cambridge ; through him Babbage encountered Charles Simeon and his evangelical followers, but the tuition was not what he needed. He was brought home, to study at the Totnes school: this was at age 16 or 17. The second
2923-614: The Royal Society, which Babbage wished to reform. It was written out of pique, when Babbage hoped to become the junior secretary of the Royal Society, as Herschel was the senior, but failed because of his antagonism to Humphry Davy . Michael Faraday had a reply written, by Gerrit Moll , as On the Alleged Decline of Science in England (1831). On the front of the Royal Society Babbage had no impact, with
3002-526: The Whitmore sisters. He made a home in Marylebone in London and established a large family. On his father's death in 1827, Babbage inherited a large estate (value around £100,000, equivalent to £10.9 million or $ 15 million today), making him independently wealthy. After his wife's death in the same year he spent time travelling. In Italy he met Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany , foreshadowing
3081-563: The application of the Public Health Act to this town, from a large number of the inhabitants, upon the ground of the supposed expense of carrying out the sanitary reforms which I found to be so much needed." No action was taken by the town vestry for over twenty years. In 1851, the Colonial Secretary Earl Grey , on the recommendation of the geologist Sir Henry De la Beche , assigned Babbage to perform
3160-471: The area in 1857 and John Baker then took up a 200 square miles (518 km ) lease and stocked the property with cattle in 1858. Augustus Charles Gregory and his party arrived at Blanchewater in 1858 trekking in from the north east from what was believed to be trackless desert and impassable salt lakes. The group had followed the Strzelecki Creek proving it to be the best way to travel through
3239-467: The barb that both Babbage and Brewster had received public money. In the debate of the period on statistics ( qua data collection) and what is now statistical inference , the BAAS in its Statistical Section (which owed something also to Whewell ) opted for data collection. This Section was the sixth, established in 1833 with Babbage as chairman and John Elliot Drinkwater as secretary. The foundation of
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3318-691: The bland election of the Duke of Sussex to succeed Gilbert the same year. As a broad manifesto, on the other hand, his Decline led promptly to the formation in 1831 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS). The Mechanics' Magazine in 1831 identified as Declinarians the followers of Babbage. In an unsympathetic tone it pointed out David Brewster writing in the Quarterly Review as another leader; with
3397-921: The clues to unification of electromagnetic theory , staying close to Ampère's force law . Babbage purchased the actuarial tables of George Barrett , who died in 1821 leaving unpublished work, and surveyed the field in 1826 in Comparative View of the Various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives . This interest followed a project to set up an insurance company, prompted by Francis Baily and mooted in 1824, but not carried out. Babbage did calculate actuarial tables for that scheme, using Equitable Society mortality data from 1762 onwards. During this whole period, Babbage depended awkwardly on his father's support, given his father's attitude to his early marriage, of 1814: he and Edward Ryan wedded
3476-691: The company undertaking the railway from Port Adelaide to the city. In 1853, Babbage was one of the first five members of the Mitcham District Council , serving as the council's first chairman. A ward in the City of Mitcham was named after him. In 1854 he was elected to the Central Road Board. In 1855, Babbage served as President of the Adelaide Philosophical Society . In 1857, Babbage was elected to
3555-420: The concept of a trade . John Ruskin went further, to oppose completely what manufacturing in Babbage's sense stood for. Babbage also affected the economic thinking of John Stuart Mill . George Holyoake saw Babbage's detailed discussion of profit sharing as substantive, in the tradition of Robert Owen and Charles Fourier , if requiring the attentions of a benevolent captain of industry , and ignored at
3634-519: The contradiction they have imagined can have no real existence, and that whilst the testimony of Moses remains unimpeached, we may also be permitted to confide in the testimony of our senses." The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise was quoted extensively in Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation . The parallel with Babbage's computing machines is made explicit, as allowing plausibility to
3713-460: The fields of functional equations (including the difference equations fundamental to the difference engine) and operator ( D-module ) methods for differential equations . The analogy of difference and differential equations was notationally changing Δ to D, as a "finite" difference becomes "infinitesimal". These symbolic directions became popular, as operational calculus , and pushed to the point of diminishing returns. The Cauchy concept of limit
3792-577: The first part of the book. The second part considered the "domestic and political economy" of manufactures. The book sold well, and quickly went to a fourth edition (1836). Babbage represented his work as largely a result of actual observations in factories, British and abroad. It was not, in its first edition, intended to address deeper questions of political economy; the second (late 1832) did, with three further chapters including one on piece rate . The book also contained ideas on rational design in factories, and profit sharing . In Economy of Machinery
3871-516: The government grew tired of his slow, methodical pace, and the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Francis Dutton , responded to the controversy by replacing him with Peter Warburton in 1858. Babbage complained of unfair treatment and petitioned the House of Assembly to conduct a parliamentary inquiry into the issue. A critically acclaimed book of his pen-and-ink sketches from this expedition is held by
3950-634: The interior from the Pacific to the Southern Ocean . Harry Redford and his accomplices George Dewdney and William Rooke stole between 600 and 1,000 cattle from Bowen Downs Station in Queensland . The men then overlanded the stock approximately 1,300 kilometres (808 mi) down Cooper Creek to outback South Australia . The trek took over three months and the men sold the stock for £5000 to Blanchewater Station. Station employees tracked
4029-501: The many polymaths of his century. Babbage, who died before the complete successful engineering of many of his designs, including his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine, remained a prominent figure in the ideating of computing. Parts of his incomplete mechanisms are on display in the Science Museum in London. In 1991, a functioning difference engine was constructed from the original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in
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#17327648543374108-601: The mathematical atmosphere of 1830–65. What share had it in generating the Vector Analysis and the mathematics by which investigations in physical science are now conducted? In 1837, responding to the series of eight Bridgewater Treatises , Babbage published his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise , under the title On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation . In this work Babbage weighed in on
4187-448: The property and flows into Lake Blanche . A large waterhole on Mount Hopeless Creek is also situated to the east and once operated as an outstation. The Strzelecki Creek also flows through the property all the way to the northern Flinders Ranges are found to the south of the station. The first European to visit to the area was Benjamin Babbage in 1856 who named the area after Governor McDonnell 's wife. George Goyder then surveyed
4266-547: The reach of man's power is to form the limits of the natural world." Blanchewater Station 29°33′00″S 139°27′08″E / 29.54998°S 139.45236°E / -29.54998; 139.45236 ( Blanchewater ) Blanchewater Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in the far north of South Australia . It is situated approximately 134 kilometres (83 mi) north east of Lyndhurst and 236 kilometres (147 mi) south west of Innamincka . The MacDonnell River traverses
4345-475: The remains of William Coulthard of Angas Park, Nuriootpa , who had died of thirst around 10 March 1858. On 22 October 1858 he discovered Emerald Springs. Babbage also discovered that Lake Eyre (sighted by Edward John Eyre in 1840) actually consisted of a large northern and a smaller southern lake. A peninsula on Lake Eyre North was named Babbage Peninsula in 1963. As Babbage continued his explorations, sometimes accompanied by his son, Charles Whitmore Babbage,
4424-696: The renowned Cambridge mathematician who originated the concept of a programmable computer , and Georgina Whitmore. His uncle on his mother's side was William Wolryche-Whitmore , an MP in the House of Commons who lobbied for the formation of South Australia and introduced the South Australia Foundation Act into the British Parliament. At the age of 18, Babbage became a pupil of the engineer and architect William Chadwell Mylne , with whom he worked on waterworks projects. In
4503-408: The side of uniformitarianism in a current debate. He preferred the conception of creation in which a God-given natural law dominated, removing the need for continuous "contrivance". The book is a work of natural theology , and incorporates extracts from related correspondence of Herschel with Charles Lyell . Babbage put forward the thesis that God had the omnipotence and foresight to create as
4582-415: The source of the productivity of the factory system was exactly the combination of the division of labour with machinery, building on Adam Smith , Babbage and Ure. Where Marx picked up on Babbage and disagreed with Smith was on the motivation for division of labour by the manufacturer: as Babbage did, he wrote that it was for the sake of profitability , rather than productivity, and identified an impact on
4661-432: The theory that transmutation of species could be pre-programmed. Jonar Ganeri, author of Indian Logic , believes Babbage may have been influenced by Indian thought; one possible route would be through Henry Thomas Colebrooke . Mary Everest Boole argues that Babbage was introduced to Indian thought in the 1820s by her uncle George Everest: Some time about 1825, [Everest] came to England for two or three years, and made
4740-451: The time. Charles Babbage's Saturday night soirées , held from 1828 into the 1840s, were important gathering places for prominent scientists, authors and aristocracy. Babbage is credited with importing the "scientific soirée" from France with his well-attended Saturday evening soirées . Works by Babbage and Ure were published in French translation in 1830; On the Economy of Machinery
4819-617: The university. Babbage, John Herschel , George Peacock , and several other friends formed the Analytical Society in 1812; they were also close to Edward Ryan . As a student, Babbage was also a member of other societies such as The Ghost Club , concerned with investigating supernatural phenomena, and the Extractors Club, dedicated to liberating its members from the madhouse, should any be committed to one. In 1812, Babbage transferred to Peterhouse, Cambridge . He
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#17327648543374898-433: The works of the Almighty gives to us more exalted views of his wisdom, his goodness, and his power. Like Samuel Vince , Babbage also wrote a defence of the belief in divine miracles . Against objections previously posed by David Hume , Babbage advocated for the belief of divine agency, stating "we must not measure the credibility or incredibility of an event by the narrow sphere of our own experience, nor forget that there
4977-411: Was a prize-winning student at Adelaide Educational Institution 1853–58. Herschel wrote to his father Charles accompanied his father on his journeys of exploration 1857–62, recording scenes in a small sketchbook which has been preserved. He was a member of the Adelaide Philosophical Society and for some years its Honorary Secretary. He married Amelia Barton on 28 July 1869. While working as a teller with
5056-710: Was active as councillor and president of the Progress Association. A memorial was erected to him, the "Father of Roseville" on the corner of Babbage Road (which was named for him) and Ormonde Road, Henry Stainton Babbage (29 September 1853 – 11 June 1889), his youngest son, was also a prize-winning student at AEI. He married Emma Rosetta Leverington. His twin, Ada Isabella Babbage died in 1855. Ada Rosalie Babbage (12 November 1855 – 1936) married William D. Clare on 16 Nov 1881 Herschel's brother Dugald Bromhead (13 March 1823 – September 1901) arrived in Adelaide on
5135-497: Was also a prize-winning student at AEI 1853–1859. He married Louisa Harriot Burton (d. 22 September 1917) on 30 April 1872. An employee of the Bank of Australasia from 1860, he was transferred to Sale, Victoria in 1877 then promoted to manager of the branch at Wanganui, New Zealand , followed by successively more responsible posts until his retirement in 1906 at his home "Rawhiti" on Clanville Road, Roseville, New South Wales , where he
5214-439: Was an Oxford tutor, under whom Babbage reached a level in Classics sufficient to be accepted by the University of Cambridge. Babbage arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge , in October 1810. He was already self-taught in some parts of contemporary mathematics; he had read Robert Woodhouse , Joseph Louis Lagrange , and Maria Gaetana Agnesi . As a result, he was disappointed in the standard mathematical instruction available at
5293-485: Was an English polymath . A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered by some to be " father of the computer ". He is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer , the Difference Engine , that eventually led to more complex electronic designs, though all the essential ideas of modern computers are to be found in his Analytical Engine , programmed using
5372-588: Was built in 1873 near the burned-out cottage of John Wickham Daw, on Daws Road, and was massively constructed of concrete in a fantastic baroque style. The building developed structural defects however and remained deserted from around 1905 to around 1935, when it was demolished. He died at his home, and his remains were interred in the family vault in the cemetery of St Mary's on the Sturt . Babbage married Laura Jones (c. 1813 – 22 July 1899) at Bristol on 10 September 1839. Among their children were Charles Whitmore Babbage (1842 – 17 August 1923), their eldest son,
5451-435: Was described what is now called the "Babbage principle". It pointed out commercial advantages available with more careful division of labour . As Babbage himself noted, it had already appeared in the work of Melchiorre Gioia in 1815. The term was introduced in 1974 by Harry Braverman . Related formulations are the "principle of multiples" of Philip Sargant Florence , and the "balance of processes". What Babbage remarked
5530-511: Was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1816. After graduation, on the other hand, he applied for positions unsuccessfully, and had little in the way of a career. In 1816 he was a candidate for a teaching job at Haileybury College ; he had recommendations from James Ivory and John Playfair , but lost out to Henry Walter . In 1819, Babbage and Herschel visited Paris and the Society of Arcueil , meeting leading French mathematicians and physicists. That year Babbage applied to be professor at
5609-490: Was first an article in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana , the form in which Rennie noted it, in the company of related works by John Farey Jr. , Peter Barlow and Andrew Ure . From An essay on the general principles which regulate the application of machinery to manufactures and the mechanical arts (1827), which became the Encyclopædia Metropolitana article of 1829, Babbage developed the schematic classification of machines that, combined with discussion of factories, made up
5688-552: Was horrified by the unsanitary conditions in the town, and The Babbage Report to the General Board of Health into the town's water supply and lack of a sewerage system resulted in the board taking notice and working to improve the town's sanitation. He performed a similar inspection in the same year in the Herefordshire town of Bromyard , with similar findings. He said that he had "met with considerable opposition to
5767-539: Was in 1821 or 1822, and was the occasion on which Babbage formulated his idea for mechanical computation. The issue of the Nautical Almanac is now described as a legacy of a polarisation in British science caused by attitudes to Sir Joseph Banks , who had died in 1820. Babbage studied the requirements to establish a modern postal system , with his friend Thomas Frederick Colby , concluding there should be
5846-437: Was kept at bay. Woodhouse had already founded this second "British Lagrangian School" with its treatment of Taylor series as formal. In this context function composition is complicated to express, because the chain rule is not simply applied to second and higher derivatives. This matter was known to Woodhouse by 1803, who took from Louis François Antoine Arbogast what is now called Faà di Bruno's formula . In essence it
5925-405: Was known to Abraham De Moivre (1697). Herschel found the method impressive, Babbage knew of it, and it was later noted by Ada Lovelace as compatible with the analytical engine. In the period to 1820 Babbage worked intensively on functional equations in general, and resisted both conventional finite differences and Arbogast's approach (in which Δ and D were related by the simple additive case of
6004-609: Was on the board of the Wanganui Orphanage from 1896 to 1918 and president from 1910. Their home "Rotokawau" was on St John's Hill above the Winter Garden; the gully at the rear is called "Babbage's Gully". He died at home after a brief illness. The National Library of New Zealand has a collection of his photographs. Babbage Place in Wanganui was named for him. Eden Herschel Babbage (c. 1844 – 5 February 1924)
6083-689: Was released from prison some time after 1880 and moved to New Zealand, for a while farming in Wanganui , then "Croftmoor" near Hāwera from 1883 to 1894 then moved to St John's Hill , Wanganui where he took an active role in local affairs, and was a prominent member of the Camera Club and the Wanganui Astronomical Society . He was active in the Beautifying Society and did much work on Virginia Lake . His wife
6162-500: Was the top mathematician there, but did not graduate with honours. He instead received a degree without examination in 1814. He had defended a thesis that was considered blasphemous in the preliminary public disputation, but it is not known whether this fact is related to his not sitting the examination. Considering his reputation, Babbage quickly made progress. He lectured to the Royal Institution on astronomy in 1815, and
6241-423: Was translated in 1833 into French by Édouard Biot , and into German the same year by Gottfried Friedenberg. The French engineer and writer on industrial organisation Léon Lalanne was influenced by Babbage, but also by the economist Claude Lucien Bergery , in reducing the issues to "technology". William Jevons connected Babbage's "economy of labour" with his own labour experiments of 1870. The Babbage principle
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