1 called for 25,000 parts and would have weighed an estimated four tons.Ĭonstruction was abruptly halted in 1833 when Clement downed tools and fired his workmen following a dispute with Babbage over compensation for moving Clement's workshop closer to Babbage's house. Babbage worked closely with Joseph Clement, a master toolmaker and draftsman who was tasked with making the parts.
1, was designed to automatically calculate and tabulate mathematical functions called polynomials which have powerful general applications in mathematics and engineering. This was the intention, but one that he failed to realize. Special security devices would ensure the integrity of the results. Stereotyping - a process that automatically impressed results on soft material for the manufacture of printing plates - would eliminate errors in repeated printing.
Automatic typesetting would banish the risk of error when manually setting results in loose type. The infallibility of machinery would eliminate the risk of error from calculation and transcription (copying the results). Babbage embarked on an ambitious venture to design and build mechanical calculating engines - vast machines of unprecedented size and intricacy - to eliminate the risk of human error. The grindingly tedious labor of manually checking tables was one thing. In the 1821 vignette of Babbage and his friend, the astronomer, John Herschel, checking manually calculated tables, Babbage, finding error after error, was driven to exclaim 'I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam'. Humans are notoriously fallible and some feared that undetected errors were disasters in waiting. Printed tables were calculated, copied, checked and typeset by hand. Science, engineering, and flourishing new technologies held limitless promise.Įngineers, architects, mathematicians, astronomers, bankers, actuaries, journeymen, insurance brokers, statisticians, navigators - anyone with a need for calculation - relied on printed numerical tables for anything more than trivial calculations. Iron ships began to compete with sail, railway networks rapidly expanded, and the electric telegraph began to revolutionize communications. Steam engines slowly replaced animals as a source of motive power. Inventors and engineers exploited new materials and processes and there seemed no end to invention and innovation. Engineering, transport, communications, architecture, science and manufacture were in a state of feverish change. The middle decades of the 19th century were times of unprecedented engineering ambition.
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