Product Description

This book discusses the career of Charles Babbage (1791-1871), British advocate of the systematic use of science in industry and creator of machines that were precursors of the modern computer. Babbage used his immense personal charm and vitality in an attempt to change the thinking of contemporary industrialists who had little use for the higher reaches of science. Shifting his own energies from pure mathematics, he planned engines that would "calculate by steam": the Difference Engines, designed to compute tables according to the method of finite differences, and the more complex Analytical Engines, forerunners of the modern computer.

Almost forgotten and then rediscovered in the middle of the twentieth century, the Analytical Engines are among the great intellectual achievements of humankind. This biography of their polymathic inventor gives a convincing account of his tragic personal life and his important place in the history of science.

Customer Reviews (3)

Babbage as a man of extraordinary breadth
While Babbage is rightly mentioned in any book covering the history of the computer, he is often wrongly presented as somewhat of a crank. His life is generally described as that of a genius whose ideas were far ahead of the times and as a person who spent enormous amounts of personal and public funds in single-minded attempts to build machines that never worked. In fact, he was a man of extraordinary breadth and depth of interest, and his original difference engine worked very well. Furthermore, it can be strongly argued that the economic gains due to the fast and precise computations performed by his difference engine and the improvements in machining accuracy more than returned the public investment in the project.
Hyman does an excellent job in describing the totality of the life of Babbage. Even though I have read a great deal about the history of computing, until I encountered this book I had no idea that he was also a talented commentator on the social, economic and political changes taking place in England at that time. The industrial revolution was in high gear and Babbage was one of the leaders. His interests in all things mechanical are well documented as well as his numerous writings.
Babbage was also an experimental scientist who constantly discussed improvements with those who were making them. At the time, most of the mechanical improvements were being made by people with little formal education, but with a great deal of practical experience. The majority of the members of the scientific establishment were reluctant to get their hands and bodies dirty by entering the factories, but Babbage never hesitated. He was also very instrumental in the creation and expansion of scientific societies, although he also wielded a very caustic pen in describing the pompous irrelevance of some of the members.
Babbage also commented extensively about the relationship between the owners of the factories and the workers. His approach was to examine the problem in a scientific manner, largely refusing to take any side based on emotion. Many of his comments emphasize cooperation between the two groups and one can see some of the modern concepts of revenue sharing, worker ownership of stock, employee training and benefits. Babbage's writings were very influential and controversial, they were a strong influence on Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, who took a quite different approach. He was also an advocate of free trade and foresaw much of what went wrong in the British Empire.
Charles Babbage has always had a place on my list of technological heroes, but after reading this book, he has been allocated a higher rank. He was a man with a great deal of understanding of how English and western societies were changing and many of his fundamental ideas of computing were over a century ahead of his time. Given the enormous economic benefits of the computer, had all of his projects been funded to completion, England may have remained an industrial powerhouse well into the twentieth century.

Published in the recreational mathematics e-mail newsletter, reprinted with permission.

A Superb Read; Not What I Expected
I read this book last year (2000) after reading a book of Ada Lovelace's letters (mostly to Babbage). I had purchased my hardcover copy at the Computer Museum in Boston MA back in the late 80's or early 90's, but had not read it because it looked daunting and dry. Was I wrong! This book is very readable and utterly fascinating; in fact a page turner that I could hardly put down. I've been looking for a softcover (or even another hardcover) for some time, so I could loan to friends. How delighted I am to find one! Babbage was a fascinating character and this book not only illuminates the man but also the times and the politics and the other fascinating technological events and efforts of the day. The discussion of the "great gauge wars" (the fight for the "ideal" width for railroad tracks) and Babbage's involvement was delightful. It appears he may have invented the first working strip chart recorder. This book was delightful and I got so involved with Babbage that I cried when his death occurred and the book ended. He was a giant among scientists and yet was frustrated all his life, by petty politics and short-sighted politicians, in the effort to build his stupendous and wondrous machines. A wonderful story, full of technological history. Other highlights: descriptions and pictures of the machines (of course); description of the effort to build a tunnel under the Thames river (by the the Jr and Sr Brunels); Babbage's methods (at times he did all phases of the work for his projects) and his workshop; his notes on working out the operation of the machines; family life; involvement in the technical societies of the day. (The book of Ada Lovelace's letters is also highly recommended if this is an interesting area for you.)...

The Computer was Invented well before Reticulated Electricit
In the early 19th century, a moderately well-off and very well educated Englishman dreams up an elaborate calculating machine for doing log and trig tables. When he begins this project, the railroad and the telegraph do not yet exist. The machine tools and manufacturing methods of the day are not up to the task, so the Englishman pushes out the envelope. He more or less succeeds in building his machine, but the British government is not interested.

The inventor goes back to the drawing board, and dreams up a much more elaborate machine, still all mechanical and steam driven, that essentially embodies all the abstractions of a von Neumann machine. Data and instructions are fed to it via punched cards. His collaborator for a number of years, and the author of the best description of the machine and what it can do, is Byron's daughter. The inventor is well known to all intellectual Britons of his day, including Charles Dickens. The inventor even realises that Boolean algebra may prove important for the sort of machine he is struggling to build. The Italian government is fascinated. But the British government again cannot be bothered, and thus refuses to fund the first computer. And so all that we have are hundreds of detailed blueprints.

The above, and more, is a true story, told in this remarkable book. After this book was printed, IBM paid to have Babbage's machine built by a Swedish team. It works as Babbage expected it to, and is exhibited in the IBM museum in Armonk NY. ... Read more

Product Description
Charles Babbage was thirty years old in 1821, as was his close friend, John Herschel, and in English intellectual circles they were both regarded as brilliant mathematicians. One day as Babbage worked in preparing logarithmic tables, a tedious and boring task, he commented to Herschel that he thought he could invent a machine to do these calculations with far more speed and accuracy than a human calculator could. And so was born an idea that would fascinate, tantalize, and absorb him for the remainder of his life. Over the years he drew plans, expanded them, modified them, and finally invented two machines, the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine. The first was capable only of generating tables, but the Analytical Engine could do much more. It could convert into numbers and print the results of any formula that might be required. It could also develop any analytical formula the laws of whose formation were given. Using punched cards it could store early results in a calculation and then use them to make further calculations when they were required. He had invented the first mechanical computer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very educational.
Don't pass up this chance to know more than the average bear. This book looks deep into their relationship and offers many items to think about. truly required for those who wish to be experts! ... Read more

Product Description
Traces the life and work of the man whose nineteenth century inventions led to the development of the computer. ... Read more

Product Description
That science has long been neglected and declining in England, is not an opinion originating with me, but is shared by many, and has been expressed by higher authority than mine, states the author in his preface to this work. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1821 an inventor and mathematician named Charles Babbage was reviewing a set of mathematical tables. After finding an excess of errors in the results, he exclaimed, "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam." Thus began Babbage's lifelong enterprise to design and build a mechanical calculating engine-the world's first computer. Drawing on Babbage's original notes and designs, Doron Swade recounts both Babbage's nineteenth-century quest to build a calculating machine-the Difference Engine-and Swade's own successful attempt to build a replica for the bicentennial of Babbage's birth. Set against the tantalizing background of Victorian science and politics with a colorful cast of characters, The Difference Engine is a saga of ingenuity and will-and the dawning of a new age. Amazon.com Review
What a difference a century makes. Doron Swade, technology historian and assistant director of London's Science Museum, investigates the troubles that plagued 19th-century knowledge engineers in The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer.

The author is in a unique position to appreciate the technical difficulties of the time, as he led a team that built a working model of a Difference Engine, using contemporary materials, in time for Babbage's 1991 bicentenary. The meat of the book is comprised of the story of the first computing machine design as gathered from the technical notes and drawings curated by Swade. Though Babbage certainly had problems translating his ideas into brass, the reader also comes to understand his fruitless, drawn-out arguments with his funders. Swade had it comparatively easy, though his depictions of the frustrating search for money and then working out how best to build the enormous machine in the late 1980s are delightful.

It is difficult--maybe impossible--to draw a clear, unbroken line of influence from Babbage to any modern computer researchers, but his importance both as the first pioneer and as a symbol of the joys and sorrows of computing is unquestioned. Swade clearly respects his subject deeply, all the more so for having tried to bring the great old man's ideas to life. The Difference Engine is lovingly comprehensive and will thrill readers looking for a more technical examination of Babbage's career. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Charles Babbage: Victorian Era Technologist
Author, engineer, visionary, genius.Charles Babbage.The man born to lead humankind into a utopian era propelled by automatic computation machines.But by some cosmic prank he was born not at the first glow of the electrified age, but much earlier in a coal-fired industrial age in which neither precision production machine tools nor even the standard screw thread existed.And electricity?The triode, the fundamental active device at the root of the electronics big bang, was just being nudged to life a full generation after Babbage's death.Today, countless bits of silicon at our fingertips and spread across the globe and above our heads pulse with programs which manage everything from communications to transportation to entertainment.Inspiration for our globally connected engineers and scientists springs from the incredible developments in communications, analytical tools, and nano and bio-technologies.Babbage's muse was a Victorian lady adorned in steam power.
Author Doron Swade's description of the analysis of Babbage's drawings and of the trials engaged in the actual modern day build of Difference Engine #2 leaves me with a bit of a sense of sorrow for old Charles.It just doesn't seem plausible that he could have pulled this off had he a dozen 19th century lifetimes.Production of the thousands and thousands of precision mechanical parts needed for the construction of his machine would have challenged the industrial capacity of Babbage's day.And even if all the parts had been delivered, did he foresee the time required for the assembly and testing of the machine?The author experienced that the modern day building and debugging of the engine proceeded slowly and with numerous fits and starts.Additionally, Charles may have been flawed with an inability to maintain a consistent focus on the development of his difference engine; he puttered with incessant design changes and was often distracted by any number of scientific developments occurring in his lifetime in the middle half of the 19th century.But his genius and sense of mortality drove him to the only workable solution, that being the preparation of detailed mechanical drawings for a subsequent generation of enthusiasts to discover and execute.So whatever sorrow I felt is now displaced by respect for someone who retreated from his dogged passion for assembling and publicly operating his computational engine into the more solitary labor of transferring his concept to a full set of mechanical drawings.These were the drawings which author Swade and his team used to build the machine nearly a century and a half later.
This is an interesting and educational read for anyone curious about the state of technology and the associated politics in Victorian times.The reader will meet personalities who will be remembered because we have honorably linked their names to important developments including screw threads (Whitworth), a software language (Ada), and a space telescope (Herschel).
So, no, today's world is not driven by fleets of "Babbage engines".He could not have foreseen a future reliant on millions of transistors modulating nano-amps on a device smaller than your thumbnail, and these devices replicated by the millions in our cars, phones, iPods, and dishwashers.I agree with my friend's conclusion that Babbage engines, had they been built and mass produced, would have "died out" with the rise of electronics.It is amazing, however, that Babbage foresaw the configuration of his mechanical Analytical Engine as consisting of two unique but connected components; one, a mechanical entity for carrying out arithmetic operations, and two, a mechanical contrivance where numeric values would be stored.Amazing, because his concept, although relegated to mechanical implementation, predated by a century the concepts detailed by Von Neumann who viewed the configuration of modern computer architecture as consisting of those two fundamental interfaced components - the arithmetic logical unit or central processor, and the computer memory.
Kudos to Swade for bringing the life and times of Charles Babbage to the fore, and for his years of involvement and dedication to the actual construction of Difference Engine #2.There are numerous YouTube entries where you can see the machine operating.Or perhaps you were lucky enough to be awed, as I was, as an actual witness to the operation of Babbage's dream onsite at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

Same book as "The Cogwheel Brain"
This is a terrific book. Beyond that, I have nothing to add to the previous excellent reviews, except to note that it seems to be precisely the same book as Doron Swade's The Cogwheel Brain. I nearly bought both until I checked the tables of contents...

One of the great accomplishments of the 19th century
Charles Babbage and John Herschel, the astronomer, were preparing tables for the astronomical society.They needed to check the work of computations by humans, by different computers.The need for tables was particulary important for navigators.The source of error in the tables was clear, human fallibility.The manual production of tables, calculation, transcription, typesetting, and proofreading created opportunities for error.The engine of change in 1821 was the steam engine.Charles Babbage wanted to produce a machine to produce error-free tables.

Babbage entered Trinity in 1810.He studied on his own the work of the French mathematicians.His father was a well-to-do London banker.Charles married and received from his father an allowance of three hundred pounds.In London he established himself in scientific circles.By the spring of 1822 he had a small working model of his first design.Computing devices of the time required manipulation and were limited as to the size of the numbers the devices could handle.Babbit first used the method of differences, addition, in his design.He sent a brief announcement to the Astronomical Society about his invention.He received a mandate from the government and was prepared to build a new machine.He hired Joseph Clement for precision engineering work.Clement and Babbage devised new tools and modified machines.There was a need to produce large numbers of similar parts.Babbage conceived of his machine when manufacturing was in transition.By 1826 Babbage was wholly absorbed in the design of his Difference Engine.The machine was eight feet by seven feet by three feet.

In 1826 Babbage published a book on life assurance.While traveling in Europe following the death of his wife, he learned of his election as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.He never resided in Cambridge and gave no lectures.Babbage expressed a view on the decline of science In England.Undoubtedly science was more professional in Prussia and France.Babbage's position alienated some of his supporters.In 1832 part of the engine was put on display in his drawing room.Clement was to leave the project.Work was not resumed.The Treasury Department spent more than seventeen thousand pounds on it.

There is a curious affinity between mathematics, mind, and computing.After the break with Clement, Babbage moved from the Difference Engine to the Analytical Engine.He devised the first automatic mechanisms for multiplication and division.He had in fact designed a general purpose four function calculator.In 1836 he opted for punch cards to control the engine.The Analytical Engine was never built.Babbage worked in isolation.With the Analytical Engine Babbage was seduced by the intellectual quest.

After twenty years the Treasury axed the Difference Engine and wrote off the expense.Between 1846 and 1849 Babbage designed Difference Engine No. 2.Maurice Wilkins believed the Analytical Engine was one of the great accomplishments of the 19th century.The Science Museum in Britain built a version of the Difference Engine No. 2 for an exhibit on Babbage.

Wonderful Engines
This book has 2 basic parts.First, is the discussion of Babbage's life and his computing engines.Second, is the author's modern-day story of attempting to complete Babbage's Difference Engine, a feat which Babbage himself was unable to do.I picked up this book for the first part.I wanted to learn about Babbage and how his engines worked.While the author gives a wonderful account of Babbage's life and methodology, he does not clearly describe HOW these engines function.I realize that the engines are extremely complex, but a chapter on the functioning of the Difference Engine trial piece and some diagrams on its operations would have been much appreciated. Unfortunately, as were Babbage's contemporaries, we are left mainly in dark as to how simply turning a crank can produce the necessary additions.The author also never fully explains the "method of finite differences" upon which the function of the difference engine is based.

The most amazing part of the book is the overview of Babbage's design for the Analytical Engine- the first programmable computer.It is amazingly similar in concept to today's modern computers, but it uses motion through metal gears and cams, instead of electricity through logic gates and wires. I expected to be bored by the modern-day story, but I actually was interested in the process of reconstructing this 19th century machine.It was enlightening to see how the same problems Babbage faced 150 years before troubled engineers today.

Overall, I recommend this book for those curious about Babbage and his engines. However, the writing seems jerky and unorganized in parts, and there is little technical description of the engines' functionality.

Doron Swade's Quest to Build a Difference Engine
This is the first book I've read on Charles Babbage, but I imagine that there are others that are better.First, this book seems to assume you've already read a book or two about Babbage before.It almost has an apologetic tone and seems to be an answer to what, I assume, have been slights against Babbage and his work.Second, this book is as much about the author and his quest to build a Difference Engine as it is about Babbage himself.If you want to hear about dealing with office politics in an British museum, you may find this interesting.

All in all, this is a fairly dry read.It was interesting at points, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it for your first book on Babbage. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review
As of late 1996, this is the most readily available collectionof writings of Charles Babbage, the discoverer of the principles onwhich all modern computing machines are based. Includes passages fromhis autobiography, and more technical writings about his"Difference Engine" (the subject of a great science fictionnovel by Bruce Sterling), an essay on lockpicking (proving that the MIThackers of the 1950s were not the precedent-setters they might think!), and evenuniquely 19th-century passages such as a descrition of how hetransported six blind salamanders while travelling around Europe. Anessential volume for anyone seriously interested in the history of thecomputer. ... Read more

Product Description
Charles Babbage (1791-1871) is today remembered mainly for his attempt to complete his difference and analytical engines, the principles of which anticipate the major ideas of the modern digital computer. This book describes the evolution of Babbage's work on the design and implementation of the engines by means of a detailed study of his early mathematical investigations. Babbage is an almost legendary figure of the Victorian era, yet relatively little is known about him and no authoritative account of his life and work has appeared. He was primarily a mathematician and his early working life was devoted mainly to the study of pure mathematics. While containing much biographical information, this book concentrates on this crucial aspect of Babbage's work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

One of the best books on Charles Babbage
In the process of doing research on Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace and writing "Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers" I had the good fortune to read this book.It is intelligent, thoughtful, and discusses not only Babbage's mathematical work but gives insight into the process of discovery.It is a gem. ... Read more

Product Description
This reprint of Douglas Hartree's principal work also includes his inaugural Cambridge lecture, Calculating Machines: Recent and Prospective Developments and Their Impact on Mathematical Physics, which is extremely difficult to obtain and which makes ideal preliminary reading for the main set of lectures presented in Calculating Instruments and Machines. In these, Hartree provided the first comprehensive survey of the significant developments in computation that were going on at the time—the main directions of development in storage systems, serial machines, and parallel programming and coding, and particularly with high-speed automatic digital machines that were precursors of the modern stored program computer.

Calculating Instruments and Machines was originally published in 1949 by the University of Illinois Press. It is Volume VI in The Babbage Institute Reprint Series. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Computing Prehistory by One of Its British Participants
Calculating MachinesDouglas R. Hartree

A review by Frederick A. Ware

This book is volume six in the Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series for the History of Computing. Douglas Hartree was primarily aphysicist, his most significant contribution being the Hartree-Fockself-consistent approximation technique for generating molecular wavefunctions. Later in his career, he became one of the leading computerresearchers in Britain during the late 1940s when Britain briefly overtookthe United States in this new field.

This was a tremendously enjoyablebook. It goes into significant depth in a number of areas. The reader isimpressed and surprised by how far computer hardware and softwaredevelopment had moved in the three years since the unveiling of Eniac.

This is a valuable historical reference, as well, touching upon theprimary classes of computing machinery during what is arguably the mostcritical two decades in the realization of the computer. In 1930 the onlycomputing instruments were the mechanical desk calculator and slide rule.By 1950 there were several dozen stored program machines doing useful workscattered across two continents.

This book covers the development ofcalculating instruments and machinery during the 1930s and the 1940s.Briefly, the nine chapters are:

[1] Introduction

[2] The DifferentialAnalyser (those Brits don't know how to spell) - The Bush DifferentialAnalyser is described extensively. The core of this mechanical analoguecomputer is the two diskintegrator. Shaft rotations are used to representnumerical values, and ordinary differential equations may be solvednumerically with the instrument. There is also some discussion of howmechanical analogue computers were quickly replaced by analogue electroniccomputers with the development of the vacuum tube operationalamplifier.

[3] The Differential Analyser and Partial DifferentialEquations - Partial differential equations are turned into ordinarydifferential equations be evaluating them with one of the independent keptto a limited range. The equations are solved repeatedly to give a family ofnumerical solutions.

[4]Some Other Instruments - Analogue instrumentationcapable of Fourier decomposition and Fourier synthesis is described.

[5]Introduction to Large Automatic Digital Computers - The structure of adigital computer is described - main store, processing unit, control unit,and an input/output unit. Also the basic classes of commands used toprogram the machine are described: load/store transfers, arithmetic/logicaloperations, sequencing operations (branch and skip), and input/outputoperations. Computer science 101, but it was pretty new in 1949.

[6]Charles Babbage and the Analytical Engine - A description of Babbagescomputer demonstrating how it mapped into the digital computer of chapter5.

[7] The First Stage of Development - A description of the firstcomputers (really just souped-up calculaters with some kind of automaticsequencing capability). This included the Harvard Mark I mechanical digitalcomputer, the Bell Telephone relay digital computer, and the Penn Statevacuum tube digital computer. Of the three, the Eniac was the mostsignificant because of its blinding speed - the electronic components gaveit a 1000x performance advantage over the other technologies. The keycontribution of Mauchley and Eckert was to prove that large numbers ofvacuum tubes could be operated reliably. The architecture of the machinewas not significant, with all subsequent vacuum tube machines utilizing thefamiliar stored program architecture.

[8] Projects and Prospects - Thedevelopment of large, fast main storage is the critical problem to beaddressed in the late 1940s. The two principle alternatives to vacuum tubeflipflops are mercury delay lines and electrostatic storage on a CRT . Bothare volatile and require refreshing techniques. Both go on to be used in anumber of computers in the next five years until ferrite core memory isdeveloped.

[9] High Speed Automatic Digital Machines and NumericalAnalysis - The first attempts to develop numerical algorithms that arestable and efficient. The problems are the same as those attacked by theearlier analogue machines, but the problems of roundoff and quantizationmust be addressed for the first time. ... Read more

Product Description
A biography of Charles Babbage. As well as providing his life story and analysis of his work, the text places his achievements in context by looking at the technological and historical context of the time. The book includes quotes and writings from newspapers and journals of the time; a look at the ongoing impact of his work; and information about his rivals and the men and women who affected his life and work. ... Read more

Product Description
Charles Babbage, considered the founding father of the computer, was a key figure during a great era of British history.Best remembered for his pioneering work on analytical and difference engines, the forerunners of the modern computer, Babbage was also an active campaigner for reform in both science and society.Babbage's wide-ranging interests ran from economic theory and statistics, to lighthouse signalling and postal services.His book, Reflections on the Decline of Science in England and Some of its Causes (1830) reflected his attempts to reorganize and control the conduct of scientific activity at a national level.In addition, he published widely on theoretical and practical science and social reform.In this book, Anthony Hyman, the acknowledged expert on Babbage's life and work, has selected passages from these many publications--reflecting his innovative scientific work and his thoughts on such subjects as taxation, abolition of life peerage and the assurance of lives--subjects which anticipated the preoccupations of present day society. ... Read more

Product Description
The book may have numerous typos or missing text. It is not illustrated or indexed. However, purchasers can download a free copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website. You can also preview the book there.Purchasers are also entitled to a trial membership in the publisher's book club where they can select from more than a million books for free.Publisher: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

This Version is GARBAGE!
I have read the original version "Passages from the life of a Philospher" from Charles Babbage from the campus library, and I have to say THIS version is absolute GARBAGE!This paperbook version is a SCAN from the original using OCR software (which does a horrible attempt to translate it into text).The first page in the book has a warning to the reader that asks for forgiveness due to the vast number of typos in the book.Their excuse is "We would really like to manually proof read and correct the typos.But since many of our books only sell a couple of copies that could add hundreds of dollars to the cover price."This was followed by "The publisher and author make no repesentations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of this book"This would have been NICE to know BEFORE I bought the book, but the descriptions made no mention of the books faults.It's missing all of Babbage's equations and all his illustrations of his Difference Engine.I suprised this book doesn't violate some copyright laws.If you buy this book, be prepared to be hodwinked.I will NEVER buy anything from AMAZON again.As far as I'm concerned, this is down right FRAUD!

Great if you're researching Babbage
This work contains some essential primary sources for Babbage's Analytical Engine. It includes Babbage's "On the Mathematical Power of the Anyalytical Engine," Menebrea's article in french, followed by Lovelace's translation and notes. There are stetches included of various sections of the analytical engine.

Great if you're researching Babbage
This work contains some essential primary sources for Babbage's Analytical Engine. It includes Babbage's "On the Mathematical Power of the Anyalytical Engine," Menebrea's article in french, followed by Lovelace's translation and notes. There are stetches included of various sections of the analytical engine. ... Read more

Product Description
Subjects: MachineryNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Economics of industrialization by a contemporary observer
Written in 1832, this book is a contemporary observer's account of how machinery and manufacturing helped create unprecedented prosperity during the Industrial Revolution in England.The book is basically a text on economics as applied to manufacturing.It was intended for a lay audience, particularly ambitious factory workers.Much of the information that's cited in the book came from the author's direct observations in factories in Britain and on the Continent.

The first third of the book examines in detail the machines themselves, as examples of how machines increased productivity in various ways:by quickly making many copies of some object, by applying super-human forces to materials, by working faster than humans can, etc.This section will interest mainly historians of technology, although there are some curious tidbits; e.g., caterpillars that can be tricked into making lace (p. 94).

The author then considers factory management, which includes the importance of the division of labor, of minimizing waste, of good labor relations, etc.

The book closes with a discussion of the role of government in the economy; e.g., the effects of taxes, protectionist legislation, patents, setting standards, etc.

The author, Charles Babbage (1792-1871), designed the world's first true programable computer.His ideas were a century ahead of his time; e.g., he speculates about hydrofoils (p. 41), seismographs (p. 75), the use of computers in generating tables of mathematical data (p. 162), the centralized distribution of motive power (p. 228), and the possibility of extraterrestrial life (p. 301).

He repeatedly argues that labor's and management's interests are not inherently opposed.Thus, he argues against both unions and cartels (Ch. 30, 31).In Ch. 26 - citing the example of some mines in Cornwall - he urges profit-sharing in order to motivate workers to help raise the productivity of their companys.

The book has some shortcomings:The prose is dull, pedantic.There's no table of contents nor index.The editing is sloppy:there are too many typos, and in several places, spaces between words are missing; e.g., "...beclearlyperceived,byimagingasociety, inwhichoccupation[s]..." (p. 260).Chapter 32 is titled "23".

However, the book will interest historians who seek a contemporary's account of the Industrial Revolution as it surged around him. ... Read more

Product Description
This handbook was published in 1914 to accompany the Napier Tercentenary Exhibition. It describes exhibits of all types of calculating machines, as well as mathematical literature, logarithmic tables, and objects of historical connection with John Napier, the man who discovered logarithms. It includes an account of Napier's life and times and gives a short description of how to use Napier's bones as well as more detailed descriptions of such measuring devices as. the abacus, slide rule, planimeters, harmonic analyzers, and differentiating machines. The material is illustrated with a large number of engravings, photographs, and diagrams. It is perhaps the best English language account of machines and techniques used for calculation before the first World War. The book is Volume III in the Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series and was first published by G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume brings together for the first time John von Neumann's long-out-of-print articles on computer architecture, programming, large-scale computing, and automata theory. A number of significant papers in these areas that were not included in the multivolume John von Neumann. Collected Works (1963) have now been reprinted here. These pioneering articles - written between the mid-1940s and the mid-1950s - are of enduring value not only to computer historians but to computer scientists at the vanguard of current research. Most of today's computers are still constructed in accordance with the "von Neumann architecture," and his technique of flow charting remains basic in the domain.Papers of John von Neumann on Computers and Computer Theory is volume 12 in the Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series for the History of Computing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Papers of John von Neuman
This book is interesting for anybody who is interested on computers architecture, but it might be more graphical. ... Read more

Product Description
"The tasks which fill'd beginners with dismay
This little book has banish'd clear away."

John Napier had already discovered and published an epoch­making treatise on logarithms when in 1617 he turned to "rabdology" or rod-reckoning as yet another means by which to confront the problem of simplifying the huge calculations involved in multiplication, division, and the extraction of roots. This first English translation of Napier's Rabdologia provides a clear and readable introduction to a group of physical calculating devices, which, long overshadowed by Napier's logarithms, have their own intrinsic interest and charm.

Book I describes the first device, a set of rods known as "Napier's Bones," which were inscribed with numbers forming multiplication tables and used in conjunction with pencil and paper. Book 11 presents a series of simple calculations that readers can solve by using the rods, and a series of tables of ratios useful for division. Napier then describes the second mechanical device for calculation, a forerunner of the modern calculator that he named promptuary or "place where things are stored ready for use."

The third device, similar to a chessboard, allowed calculations to be performed by moving counters around the squares. Observing that the numbers had to be represented in what would now be called binary form, Napier provides instructions for changing from ordinary to binary numbers and back again, a method that worked equally well for multiplication and division and that had a particularly elegant symmetry when applied to the extraction of square roots. ... Read more

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Der Erwerb des Buches enthält gleichzeitig die kostenlose Mitgliedschaft im Buchklub des Verlags zum Ausprobieren - dort können Sie von über einer Million Bücher ohne weitere Kosten auswählen. Das Buch besteht aus Wikipedia-Artikeln: Charles Darwin, Charles Babbage, Jürgen Habermas, Farkas Wolfgang Bolyai, Theodor Mommsen, John Bardeen, Ludwig Boltzmann, Paul Dirac, Béla Bartók, Felix Anton Dohrn, John Stuart Mill, Rudolf von Österreich-Ungarn, Ignaz Goldziher, Andreas Alföldi, Niels Bohr, Dmitri Iwanowitsch Mendelejew, Daniel Dennett, Emil Heinrich Du Bois-Reymond, Arthur Cayley, Rudolf Clausius, Ferenc Orsós, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Fernand Braudel, Géza Alföldy, Guido Schenzl, Peter Debye, Gyula Andrássy der Jüngere, Gyula Illyés, Alexei Alexejewitsch Abrikossow, Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, James Dwight Dana, Franz Bopp, László Sólyom, Alfréd Rényi, Georg Ebers, Valentine Telegdi, Pieter Zeeman, Ottó Titusz Bláthy, Lennart Carleson, George Howard Darwin, Marcelin Berthelot, Jakob Bleyer, Friedrich Wöhler, Ungarische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Max Wolf, Samuel Brassai, Joseph Anton Johann von Österreich, Jean Dausset, Ányos Jedlik, Mihály Babits, Aimo Kaarlo Cajander, John Bowring, Georges Duby, Albert Apponyi, Carl Theodor Welcker, Joseph August von Österreich, Ézsaiás Budai, Ladislaus Batthyány-Strattmann, Péter Erdő, Paul Ariste, Jean-Baptiste Dumas, Anton Hekler, Domokos Kosáry, Miklós Barabás, Jean Gaston Darboux, Josef Budenz, Vera T. Sós, Sándor Wekerle, Otto Donner, Pál Vásárhelyi, Karl Otmar von Aretin, István Deák, Albert-László Barabási, Pál Turán, Alphonse Pyrame de Candolle, Georg von Békésy, Georg Curtius, Joseph Chmel, Vilmos Schulek, Stefan Franz Viktor von Österreich, Miklós Laczkovich, Gyula Benczúr, Cesare Cantù, János Arany, Joseph Karl Ludwig von Österreich, Péter Nagy, István Borzsák, Imre Steindl, István Bethlen, János Batsányi, Alfred Des Cloizeaux, Herwig Maehler, Dániel Berzsenyi, John Cassin, ...http://booksllc.net/?l=de&id=2542 ... Read more