Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage (1791 to 1871) was an English mathematician, inventor and mechanical engineer who conceived the programmable digital computer. Educated at Trinity College and Peterhouse, Cambridge, he co-founded the Analytical Society in 1812 with John Herschel and George Peacock to bring the Leibnizian notation of calculus to English mathematics, and worked on functional equations and operational methods. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1816 and held the Lucasian chair of mathematics at Cambridge from 1828 to 1839. His Difference Engine was designed to tabulate polynomial functions mechanically, and his later Analytical Engine, programmed with punched cards in the manner of the Jacquard loom, contained the essential ideas of modern computers. Parts of his unfinished machines survive in the Science Museum in London, and a working difference engine built from his plans in 1991 showed that the design was sound.