A quotes list created by Lee Sonogan
(1791-1871) Charles Babbage being another figure in making computers, his Difference Engine able to tabulate polynomial functions was one of the first of its kind. The logarithmic and trigonometric were some of these earliest useful tables of numbers that were practical. a pioneer and regarded as a polymath, he showed the analytic local convergent power series understood between real and complex mechanical analysis. Getting the last laugh, this work is in the advances of MEMS and nanotechnology today.
- Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
- As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will neccessarily guide the future course of science.
- The economy of human time is the next advantage of machinery in manufactures.
- On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
- At each increase of knowledge, as well as on the contrivance of every new tool, human labour becomes abridged.
- What is there in a name? It is merely an empty basket, until you put something into it.
- I have no desire to write my own biography, as long as I have strength and means to do better work.
- Perhaps it would be better for science, that all criticism should be avowed.
- I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.
- Whenever a man can get hold of numbers, they are invaluable: if correct, they assist in informing his own mind, but they are still more useful in deluding the minds of others. Numbers are the masters of the weak, but the slaves of the strong.
- An object is frequently not seen, from not knowing how to see it, rather than from any defect of the organ of vision.
- There is nothing in the nature of a miracle that should render it incredible:;: its credibility depends upon the nature of the evidence by which it is supported. An event of extreme probability will not necessarily command our belief unless upon a sufficiency of proof; and so an event which we may regard as highly improbable may command our belief if it is sustained by sufficient evidence. So that the credibility or incredibility of an event does not rest upon the nature of the event itself, but depends upon the nature and sufficiency of the proof which sustains it.
- If we define a miracle as an effect of which the cause is unknown to us, then we make our ignorance the source of miracles! And the universe itself would be a standing miracle. A miracle might be perhaps defined more exactly as an effect which is not the consequence or effect of any known laws of nature.
- The half minute which we daily devote to the winding-up of our watches is an exertion of labour almost insensible; yet, by the aid of a few wheels, its effect is spread over the whole twenty-four hours.
- There are few circumstances which so strongly distinguish the philosopher, as the calmness with which he can reply to criticisms he may think undeservedly severe.
- The errors which arise from the absence of facts are far more numerous and more durable than those which result from unsound reasoning respecting true data.
- Another mode of accumulating power arises from lifting a weight and then allowing it to fall.
- You will be able to appreciate the influence of such an Engine on the future progress of science. I live in a country which is incapable of estimating it.
- In mathematical science, more than in all others, it happens that truths which are at one period the most abstract, and apparently the most remote from all useful application, become in the next age the bases of profound physical inquiries, and in the succeeding one, perhaps, by proper simplification and reduction to tables, furnish their ready and daily aid to the artist and the sailor.
- The triumph of the industrial arts will advance the cause of civilization more rapidly than its warmest advocates could have hoped, and contribute to the permanent prosperity and strength of the country far more than the most splendid victories of successful war.
This genius makes you relise that it is impossible to like maths in school because there are thousands of more different ways to think of every piece into a machine. Nonetheless, raw history like this is making me interpret so many correlations I have not considered before, maybe there shall be a delay in this book I am writing again. The sheer organisation of it all is all it is that’s relevant. Then apparently, he had more ideas that were never fully completed as well.
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