821, Babbage began the task of mechanizing the production of tables. In 1822, he proposed to build a machine called the Difference Engine to automatically calculate mathematical tables. The idea was to invent a calculating machine that could not only calculate without error but also automatically print the results. Difference engines were designed to calculate using the method of finite differences, a well-used principle of the time. It was only partially completed when he conceived the idea of a more sophisticated machine called the Analytical Engine. Some texts refer to this machine as an Analytical Steam Engine because Babbage intended that it would be powered by steam.Beginning in 1828, Babbage occupied the Lucasian chair of mathematics at Cambridge University. It was 1833 when he began his work on the Analytical Engine. It was intended to use loops of Jacquard’s punched cards to control an automatic calculator that could make decisions based on the results of previous computations. This machine was also intended to employ several features subsequently used in modern computers including sequential control, branching, and looping. In 1839, he resigned his professorship to devote his full attention to this project. Working with Babbage was Augusta Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the English poet Lord Byron. Ada, who was a splendid mathematician and one of the few people who fully understood Babbage's vision, created a program for the Analytical Engine. Had the Analytical Engine ever actually worked, Ada's program would have been able to compute a mathematical sequence known as Bernoulli numbers. Based on this work, Ada is now credited as being the first computer programmer and in 1979, a modern programming language was named ADA in her honor.Babbage’s talents and interests were wide-ranging. He was a prolific inventor, a mathematician, scientist, politician, critic of the scientific establishment and political e...
