The Life and Contributions of Charles Babbage：（查尔斯·巴贝奇的生活和贡献）.pdfVIP

Jared Rudenstein History of Computing Biography Paper 10/30/01 The Life and Contributions of Charles Babbage The history of computing can be traced back many years. Digital Computing is rooted in the art of counting and solving problems. From the early forms of counting and doing arithmetic using an abacus or Napier’s Bones, computing has always been the objective. As the years went by, the way people completed these tasks became easier and more dependent on machines. By moving to machines, huma ns were able to complete tougher tasks dealing with numbers and calculations and also they could do more in a given period of time. This is evident in the example of the problem the US had when trying to count the country’s population. The early censuses were done by hand, but as the population grew larger, it was more difficult to complete that task in a reasonable period of time. Therefore some people began to think about making a machine that could aid in the process. It was successful and completing the census was not as hard as it could have been. Throughout the history of computing we see situations as this, where there is a problem with trying to complete a calculation or task and someone comes up with an idea to solve the problem. These inventors are the pioneers that drove the evolution of computing to new heights. One such man that took part in this evolution was Charles 1 Babbage. His story “is a tale of squabbles over money, personal tragedy, a vendetta, a beautiful countess, a