Who Was The Founder Of The Computer?

Who Was The Founder Of The Computer?

Babbage, Charles (1791-1871), British mathematician and inventor, who designed and built mechanical computing machines on principles that anticipated the modern electronic computer. Babbage was born in Teignmouth, Devon, on December 26, 1791, and educated at the University of Cambridge, where he founded the Analytical Society. He was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge from 1828 to 1839. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1816, and was active in the founding of both the Royal Astronomical Society (1820) and the Statistical Society (1834).


Babbage’s life-long ambition was to eliminate errors in mathematical and navigational tables by having them both calculated and printed mechanically. In 1821 he conceived his Difference Engine, a relatively simple mechanical device that achieved multiplications and divisions by means of repeated additions. Such a system is comparatively easy to mechanize since it is confined to a fixed set of operations determined by its gearwheels. It was the first calculating machine that worked without the intervention of the operator, and is therefore considered the starting point of the modern digital computer. He obtained some financial aid from a reluctant government, and used up a large part of his private fortune, but was unable to complete the machine.

In the early 1830s Babbage conceived a much more ambitious machine, his Analytical Engine. Unlike his previous mechanical calculator, this was the first automatic general-purpose calculating machine, embodying many of the principles of the modern computer. It could be programmed with punched cards to perform the four basic arithmetic functions (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), and it separated the “mill”, which processed the information, and the “store”, where the information and the results were held. In doing this, Babbage anticipated the architecture of the modern electronic digital computer described by John von Neumann in 1945, which separated the processor and the memory.

Babbage failed to complete either of his engines, partly because of the high costs involved, and because he was deflected by his fertile mind continually conceiving improvements. In 1991 British engineers, following Babbage’s detailed drawings, specifications, and the portions that have survived, constructed the Difference Engine; the machine worked flawlessly, calculating up to a precision of 31 digits, proving that Babbage’s design was sound. Although Babbage developed the design of his Analytical Engine to an advanced stage, only a small experimental model was constructed during his lifetime. Its truly remarkable nature was only appreciated with hindsight. Babbage’s book, Economy of Machines and Manufactures (1832), initiated the field of study known today as operational research. He died in London on October 18, 1871.