Blog Posts for 'Computing Vignettes' Category When Charles met Ada…By Murali Madhavan August 08, 2011 at 16-17 PM
Having lost his wife and two children in bewilderingly quick succession, Charles Babbage was a devastated man.
His mother Betty moved in with him to look after his remaining four children. Charles himself tried to find solace in his long time friend from Cambridge days, John Herschel.....
Tragedy Strikes! By Murali Madhavan July 20, 2011 at 19-01 PM Charles Babbage built the Difference Engine - or a small model of it- at his home workshop in 1822 . And he was satisfied that it worked well enough, so he went ahead and publicized it. He also wrote a detailed description of the device in a mail to Sir Humphrey Davy ( of the Miners’ Lamp fame) – who headed the Royal Society at that time.
A Steam-powered Computer!By Murali Madhavan June 22, 2011 at 11-54 AM
Charles Babbage’s Cambridge education ended in the spring of 1814 when he graduated. That he did not attach much import to the formal qualifications was evident from that fact that he refused to attempt an Honors degree. In his own words, he valued the University education more for the friends he made there and for the books it enabled him to access, and far less for the formal degree it conferred on him.
The Disgruntled Calculus Student By Murali Madhavan June 22, 2011 at 11-49 AM
This English Mathematician is credited to be the first person to develop a machine that could do calculations.
He burst on the scene a whole century after Isaac Newton, the greatest mathematician of all time. Cambridge University had lost its leading position in the Mathematicalarena to French and German scientists in the period that followed Newton’s demise in 1727.
A Roomful of Women 'Computors'!By Murali Madhavan, April 28, 2011 at 15-20 PM
The United States of America had a problem.
The Second World War was raging. And the design, manufacture, and induction of new Arms and Ammunition was happening at an ever-increasing rate.
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