Charles Babbage

1791–1871 · English mathematician, philosopher, and engineer

Topics: programming, debugging, learning, mathematics

• On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], "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.

  — Charles Babbage

• The whole of arithmetic now appeared within the grasp of mechanism.

  — Charles Babbage

• 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.

  — Charles Babbage

• Every moment dies a man, every moment 1 1/16 is born.

  — Charles Babbage

• As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of the science. Whenever any result is sought by its aid, the question will then arise — by what course of calculation can these results be arrived at by the machine in the shortest time?

  — Charles Babbage