Englishman Charles Babbage (1791–1871), an eccentric, ingenious mathematician, decided that existing tables of computations included far too many errors: the day's textbooks came with errata sheets ...

IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. This is a replica of the portion of a ...

As you might expect from its name, the "Difference Engine" is a strangely difficult object to describe. You might start by imagining the side of a large crib with uprights ringed by small metal wheels ...

ON THE 150th anniversary of the death of Charles Babbage, we retrace the footsteps of the brilliant but irascible British inventor, mathematician and engineer. Host Kenneth Cukier investigates why ...

Acclaimed as a mathematical genius, Ada Lovelace is said to have understood the potential of the first computer blueprints better than their inventor. A serendipitous friendship with the mathematician ...

For many of us, the computer is the symbol of our hypermodernity, the image of how vastly we differ--culturally, economically, socially and politically--from past generations. And many of us think of ...