ON THE 150th anniversary of the death of Charles Babbage, we retrace the footsteps of the brilliant but irascible British inventor, mathematician and engineer. Host Kenneth Cukier investigates why ...

Charles Babbage is credited for designing and giving birth to the idea of the first automatic digital computer. During the mid-1830s, Charles developed plans for an Analytical Engine. Although it wasn ...

German engineer and inventor Konrad Zuse is considered as the inventor of the modern computer but was frustrated in his ...

Englishman Charles Babbage (1791–1871), an eccentric, ingenious mathematician, decided that existing tables of computations included far too many errors: the day's textbooks came with errata sheets ...

As you might expect from its name, the "Difference Engine" is a strangely difficult object to describe. You might start by imagining the side of a large crib with uprights ringed by small metal wheels ...

A numerical table is a tool designed to save the time and labor of those engaged in computing work. The oldest tables which are preserved, were compiled in Babylon in the period 1800-1500 B.C. They ...

Charles Babbage is widely recognized as a pioneer of the programable computer due to his ingenious designs for steam-driven calculating machines in the 19th century. But Babbage drew inspiration from ...