The Babbage Engine

 

The worlds heaviest calculator

 

For fans of mechanical calculators, this is a must-see.  The Computer History Museum in Mountain View currently has a working copy of Charles Babbage’s difference engine on display.  This is a calculator designed in the 1850s but never build until this century.  The machine weighs over 8 tons and has thousands of moving parts.  It can be set up to generate logarithms or other mathematical functions and it even has a printer.  Pretty sophisticated for a mathematician who lived in the age of steam.

 

Sunday, September 7, 2008

 
 
Made on a Mac

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