ON THE 150th anniversary of the death of Charles Babbage, we retrace the footsteps of the brilliant but irascible British inventor, mathematician and engineer. Host Kenneth Cukier investigates why ...

Frustrated by human error, mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage designed a machine to perform mathematical functions and automatically print the results. Library of Congress When today’s number ...

Many people vaguely know Ada Lovelace as the inventor of the first computer. Is this claim true? To get straight to the point, it is not. To understand Lovelace's true contributions, we must first ...

A rare 175 year-old book containing the world's first computer algorithm by Ada Lovelace – mathematician and daughter of Lord Byron – has been sold at auction in England for £95,000 (US$125,000). Only ...

Charles Babbage 17911871 computer pioneer designed the first automatic computing engines He invented computers but failed to build them The first complete Babbage Engine was completed in London in ...

The simple question of who invented the digital computer has many possible answers. Several strands of development – both theoretical and practical – converged around 1950, and no single inventor can ...

As you might expect from its name, the "Difference Engine" is a strangely difficult object to describe. You might start by imagining the side of a large crib with uprights ringed by small metal wheels ...