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\"Babbage\" redirects here. For other uses, see Babbage (disambiguation).

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Charles Babbage KH FRS
Babbage in 1860
Born	(1791-12-26)26 December 1791 London, England
Died	18 October 1871(1871-10-18) (aged 79) Marylebone, London, England
Alma mater	Peterhouse, Cambridge
Known for	Analytical engine Difference engine
Spouse	\n Georgiana Whitmore \n (m. 1814; died 1827)
Children	8, including Benjamin Herschel Babbage and Henry Prevost Babbage
Relatives	William Wolryche-Whitmore (brother-in-law)
Awards	Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1824)
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics, engineering, political economy, computer science
Institutions	Trinity College, Cambridge, Peterhouse, Cambridge
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Signature

Charles Babbage KH FRS (/\u02c8b\u00e6b\u026ad\u0292/; 26 December 1791 \u2013 18 October 1871) was an English polymath.^[1] A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer.^[2]\n

Babbage is considered by some to be \"father of the computer\".^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] 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 a principle openly borrowed from the Jacquard loom.^[2]^[6] Babbage had a broad range of interests in addition to his work on computers covered in his 1832 book Economy of Manufactures and Machinery.^[7] He was an important figure in the social scene in London, and is credited with importing the \"scientific soir\u00e9e\" from France with his well-attended Saturday evening soir\u00e9es.^[8]^[9] His varied work in other fields has led him to be described as \"pre-eminent\" among the many polymaths of his century.^[1]\n

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 the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked.\n

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v t e Timelines of computing
Computing	\n Before 1950 \n 1950\u20131979 \n 1980s \n 1990s \n 2000s \n 2010s \n 2020s \n Scientific \n Women in computing \n
Computer science	\n Algorithms \n Artificial intelligence \n Binary prefixes \n Cryptography \n Machine learning \n Quantum computing and communication \n
Software	\n Free and open-source software \n Hypertext technology \n Operating systems\n DOS family \n Windows \n Linux \n Programming languages \n Virtualization development \n Malware \n
Internet	\n Internet conflicts \n Web browsers \n Web search engines \n
Notable people	\n Kathleen Antonelli \n John Vincent Atanasoff \n Charles Babbage \n John Backus \n Jean Bartik \n George Boole \n Vint Cerf \n John Cocke \n Stephen Cook \n Edsger W. Dijkstra \n J. Presper Eckert \n Adele Goldstine \n Lois Haibt \n Betty Holberton \n Margaret Hamilton \n Grace Hopper \n David A. Huffman \n Bob Kahn \n Brian Kernighan \n Andrew Koenig \n Semyon Korsakov \n Nancy Leveson \n Ada Lovelace \n Donald Knuth \n Joseph Kruskal \n Douglas McIlroy \n Marlyn Meltzer \n John von Neumann \n Kl\u00e1ra D\u00e1n von Neumann \n Dennis Ritchie \n Guido van Rossum \n Claude Shannon \n Frances Spence \n Bjarne Stroustrup \n Ruth Teitelbaum \n Ken Thompson \n Linus Torvalds \n Alan Turing \n Paul Vixie \n Larry Wall \n Stephen Wolfram \n Niklaus Wirth \n Steve Wozniak \n Konrad Zuse \n

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Early life

At the University of Cambridge

After Cambridge

Royal Astronomical Society

British Lagrangian School

Academic

\"Declinarians\", learned societies and the BAAS

On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures

\"Babbage principle\"

Publishing

Influence

Natural theology

Religious views

Later life

Metrology programme

Engineer and inventor

Cryptography

Public nuisances

Computing pioneer

Background on mathematical tables

Difference engine

Completed models

Analytical Engine

Ada Lovelace and Italian followers

Swedish followers

Legacy

Family

Death

Autopsy report

Memorials

In fiction and film

Publications

See also

Notes

References

External links

Charles Babbage

Media collections