Points for reflection

 

1 Have you learnt anything new about Nikola Tesla from this unit?

2 What made the greatest impression on you?

3 Has anything surprised you?

4 Did you like the text? Why? /Why not?

 

Credit points

 

tasks	Maximum score	Your scores
Reading 1 2 3 4 5	2 2 2 2 2
Vocabulary 1 2 3 4 5 6	2 2 2 2 2 2
Grammar 1 2 3	4 4 6
Speaking 1 2 3 4	6 8 8 10
Points for reflection	2
Total	70

 

 

Module 4 Charles Babbage (1792-1871)

Рис. 6 Difference engine

Before you start

 

1 You are going to read about life and work of the British inventor, Charles Babbage. Before you read the text answer the following questions.

a) What field of science did he work in?

b) What is he famous for?

 

Reading

 

1 Pay attention to the correct pronunciation of the following words.

 

Babbage	[´bæbIʤ]	irascible	[´lɔgərIðәm]
Leibniz	[´laIbnIts]	logarithm	[ mə´∫I:nərI]
Lagrange	[ lə´gra:n(d)s ]	machinery	[´enʤIn ]
Trinity	[´trInətI ]	engine	[´ʤI:nIəs]
association	[ sə´saIətI]	genius	[ əb´skjuərətI ]
society	[´dIfrəns ]	obscurity	[ِ ِænə´lItIkl]
difference	[əِ səusI´eI∫n]	analytical	[I´ræsəbl ]

 

2 Read the text and think of the proper title for it. Explain your choice.

 

*   *   *

British inventor Charles Babbage is one of the great paradoxes of computing history. Although he is often credited with developing the first "general-purpose computer," he never actually built any examples of his design. His steam-powered Analytical Engine, as it was called, would seem extremely primitive to us today, but in

the 1830s, it was a groundbreaking design. (1)

Рис.7 Charles Babbage

Babbage was born in Teignmouth, Devonshire (UK) into a middle-class banking family. He followed an educational path typical for his age and status. His father’s money allowed Charles to receive instruction from several schools and tutors during the course of elementary education.

Around age eight he was sent to a country school to recover from a life-threatening fever with the strict instruction to the master not to press too much knowledge upon him. Perhaps this great idleness and a well-stocked library in the academy in Middlesex prompted his love of mathematics. Here he began to show a passion for mathematics but a dislike for the classics. On leaving the academy, he continued to study at home, having an Oxford tutor to bring him up to university level. He had read extensively in Leibniz, Lagrange, Simpson and was seriously disappointed in the mathematical instruction available at Trinity College in Cambridge. In response, he, John Hershel, George Peacock and several other friends formed the Analytical Society to try to bring the modern continental mathematics to Cambridge. (2)

Babbage and Herschel produced the first of the publications of the Analytical Society when they published Memoirs of the Analytical Society in 1813, a remarkably deep work when one realises that it was written by two undergraduates. They gave a history of the calculus, and of the Newton, Leibniz controversy. In spite of being the top mathematician he failed to graduate with honours. (3)

As an active participant in the mathematical circles of the day, he founded the

Analytical Society, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Astronomical Society and served as Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge. He also published a number of books on mathematics, statistics, and a variety of mechanical and industrial topics. His fascination with the mechanics was a lifelong interest. Rather than watch plays and operas with his society counterparts, he chose to go behind the scenes to view the trap doors, stage elevators, and other mechanisms of an 1800s theater. (4)

Babbage is without doubt the originator of the concepts behind the present day computer. The computation of logarithms had made him aware of the inaccuracy of human calculation around 1812. Once he wrote: “ ... I was sitting in the rooms of the Analytical Society, at Cambridge, my head leaning forward on the table in a kind of dreamy mood, with a table of logarithms lying open before me. Another member, coming into the room, and seeing me half asleep, called out, Well, Babbage, what are you dreaming about?" to which I replied "I am thinking that all these tables" (pointing to the logarithms) "might be calculated by machinery." (5)

Certainly Babbage did not follow up this idea at that time but in 1819, when his interests were turning towards astronomical instruments, his ideas became more precise and he formulated a plan to construct tables using the method of differences by mechanical means. Such a machine would be able to carry out complex operations using only the mechanism for addition. He completed a small difference engine in 1822. It was on 14 June 1822 when Babbage’s computing career began. He announced his invention in a paper Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables read to the Royal Astronomical Society. It would become his downfall as well. (6)

Although Babbage envisaged a machine capable of printing out the results it obtained, this was not done by the time the paper was written. An assistant had to write down the results obtained. Babbage illustrated what his small engine was capable of

doing by calculating successive terms of the sequence n2 + n + 41. (7)

As he was convinced that a large difference engine could do the work undertaken by teams of people saving cost and being totally accurate, he sought public funds for the construction of a large difference engine. In 1823 Babbage received a gold medal from the Astronomical Society for his development of the difference engine and his initial grant for 1500 pounds. He began work on a large difference engine which he believed he could complete in three years. However the construction proceeded slower than had been expected. Over the next several decades, he designed the Difference Engine again and again, making each incarnation more efficient, more elegant and more compact than the one before, and leaving a trail of unfinished efforts in his creative wake. (8)

In 1834 Babbage published his most influential work On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, in which he proposed an early form of what today we call operational research. The same year was the one in which the work stopped on the difference engine. By that time the government had invested 17000 pounds into the project and Babbage had put 6000 pounds of his own money. (9)

By the 1840s, Babbage had moved on to an even more ambitious machine that he called the Analytical Engine. It was never built either, but in theory, anyway, it represented a substantial advancement over the Difference Engine. A programmable machine with memory and a central processor, capable of looping and conditional branching, the Analytical Engine possessed many structural elements of the modern digital computer. But in 1842 funding for Babbage and his work stopped, the government decided not to proceed and stuck the incomplete Difference Engine in the Science Museum, where it still sits. (10)

Babbage's biographers have noted that the government failed to recognize the potential of Babbage's insights, the immense possibilities of his work, ignored the advice of the most reputable scientists and engineers, misunderstood his motives and the sacrifices he had made, and failed to protect him from the ridicule he suffered as a result of its failure. However, Babbage never gave up hope of building his Analytical Engine, he wrote;” ... if I survive some few years longer, the Analytical Engine will exist... ”. He applied once more for funding in 1851 but was turned down. He was reviled in the press and by the public for his careless spending of public funds and died in obscurity¹. (11)

A classic curmudgeonly polymath who was known--with good reason—as "The Irascible Genius," Babbage was an inveterate, obsessive thinker, a mathematician with a penchant for engineering that led him, over the course of his long and colorful life, to invent such varied items as the ophthalmoscope, the cowcatcher found on the fronts of locomotives, the black-box recorder (for trains), a submarine automated by compressed air, a seismograph for measuring earthquakes, a "coronagraph" for generating artificial eclipses, a pen that drew dotted lines (for mapmaking), ergonomic paper (green ink on green paper, Babbage found, was easiest on the eyes), and a pair of shoes designed to let the wearer walk on water (Babbage nearly drowned when testing them, thus establishing that his considerable mental powers did not extend to working miracles). (12)

When he wasn't busy inventing, Babbage dabbled in cryptography, wrote books of social criticism, and raised insult to an art form. The irascible genius was known for his ability to alienate people, and honed his talent on everyone from the Royal Society (which he attacked in a scurrilous book on how governmental corruption was contributing to the decline of English science) to street musicians (who met Babbage's persistent efforts to silence them by playing loudly right outside his window). (13)

Dismissed as a crackpot² during his own lifetime and subsequently forgotten by all but the most enthusiastic computer buffs and obsessive Victorianists, Babbage has been relegated to the footnotes of history, a curious example of a man whose ideas were too far ahead of his time to make sense. Babbage's reputation as a visionary and engineer was vindicated when several of the machines he designed, notably the second Difference Engine and its 2.5-tonne printer, were built by the London Science Museum to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his birth in 1991. They had not been built at the time he had lived, mainly due to lack of funds. It was subsequently proven that the critical tolerances required by his machines exceeded the metallurgy and technology available at the time. Built from his original plans, not only did they work, they worked exceptionally well. Modern scientists have stated that Babbage's Analytical Engine was also a viable model, although the limitations of Newtonian physics (upon which it was based) might have prevented its realization at the time. (14)

                                                             (Adapted from the Internet sites)

---------------------------

-¹ умереть в безвестности

-² чокнутый

 

3 What do these figures refer to?

 

1500

1812

1792

17000

1822

2.5

1834

6000

1842

200

 

4 Make a list of Babbage’s inventions and developments.

 

5 Read the text again and answer the following questions:

a) Where did Charles Babbage receive his early education?

b) When did he get interested in math?

c) Why did he get disappointed in math studies in Cambridge?

d) What was the Analytical Society aimed at?

e) What fields of science was Babbage interested in?

f) Why did he come across the idea of mechanical computations?

g) What kind of device did those ideas result in?

h) When did he announce of his invention?

i) Was the device able to print out the results it obtained?

j) What kind of device did he conceive in the late 1830s?

k) How much money was invested in Babbage’s work? Was it repaid?

l) What kind of personality was Charles Babbage?

 

Vocabulary

 

1 Fill in the table with the missing words. Consult the dictionary if necessary.

 

action	activity/result of action	person/device	characteristic
		thinker
			original
advise
	advancement
			analytical
		undergraduate
apply
			operational
	government
construct
		visionary

 

2 Explain how the following compounds are formed. Put the phrases under the correct heading.

 

Example: steam-powered engine – an engine that is powered by steam

adjective+noun	noun+participle I	noun+participle II	adverb+participle II	noun+adjective
		steam-powered

 

general-purpose computer, life-threatening fever, well-stocked library, wireless

communication industry, lifelong interest, science-based industry, well-disposed stance, error-correcting code, man-made lightning, world-wide fame, high voltage level, radio-controlled automation, remotely-controlled torpedoes, brand-new science, properly-designed computer, binary digit code, life-saving possibilities, household appliances

 

3 Complete the sentences with the prepositions if necessary.

a) Babbage is credited … numerous inventions.

b) He had several publications … various topics that captured his interest.

c) At that time scientists announced … their inventions and discoveries at the meetings of the Royal Scientific Academy.

d) Babbage’s passion … mathematics and mechanics shaped his life.

e) Being aware … human inaccuracy, Babbage dreamt about mechanical methods to do complex calculations.

f) In the 19^th century there were many scientific and technological limitations that prevented … realization of Babbage’s Analytical Engine.

 

4 Look back in the text and explain the following phrases and sentences in your own words.

a) … a groundbreaking design. (1)

b) … not to press to much knowledge upon … (2)

c) His fascination with the mechanics was a lifelong interest. (4)

d) It would become his downfall …. (6)

e) …his considerable mental powers did not extend to working miracles. (11)

f) …raised insult to an art form. (12)

g) … has been relegated to the footnotes of history … (13)

h) Babbage’s reputation … was vindicated … (13)

i) … the critical tolerances required by his machines exceeded the metallurgy and technology available at the time. (13)

 

5 Give English equivalents to the following words and word combinations.

приписывать кому-л изобретение; обучаться где-л; пробудить любовь к чему-л; нелюбовь к учебному предмету; разочароваться в методах преподавания математики; написать поразительно глубокую работу; окончить университет с отличием; неточность вычислений; метод нахождения разности; проводить сложные вычисления; предвидеть совершенно новое устройство; признавать чью-л проницательность\глубину понимания; страдать от насмешек; ругать за легкомысленную растрату общественных средств; заниматься каким-л делом непрофессионально; жизнеспособная модель

 

Grammar

 

1 Express contrast using the following the prompts in brackets.

 

although	He was interested in mathematics althoughhe never used his mathematical skills in any jobs he held. Although hewas interested in mathematics,he never used his mathematical skills in any jobs he held.
however	He was sure he could complete the difference engine in three years. However, the construction proceeded slower than he expected.
in spite of	In spite ofbeinga top mathematician,he failed to graduate with honours.
despite	Despitebeinga top mathematician,he failed to graduate with honours.

 

a) Turing produced unconventional answers. But he won almost every possible mathematics prize at school. (in spite of)

b) Modern scientists have stated that Babbage's Analytical Engine was a viable model. But the limitations of Newtonian physics prevented its realization at the time. (although)

c) For the first time Turing was able to find someone with whom he could share his thoughts and ideas. But his friend Morcom died in February 1930. (however)

d) Edison knew he would hear his own words when experimenting with tin foil phonograph. But he was astonished when they were spoken back to him. (although)

e) Edison’s name was used in the title of electric company – Edison General Electric. But he never controlled this company. (despite)

f) With the development of gasoline powered cars electric vehicles were becoming less common. But the Edison alkaline battery still proved to be useful. (however)

g) Babbage is often credited with developing the first general-purpose computer. But he never actually built any of them. (although)

 

2 Translate paragraphs 1-2 into Russian.

 

Speaking

 

1 Look through the text and divide it into parts. Entitle each part. Summarize the text in no more than 10 sentences using your key points.

 

 

2 Comment on the following quotations:

a)  “... if I survive some few years longer, the Analytical Engine will exist... ” Charles Babbage, autobiography. Do you think he was right in his predictions? Why? /Why not?

b) “The whole of the developments and operations of analysis are now capable of being executed by machinery.... As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of science.” Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (London 1864). Why was Babbage sure about the future of mechanical computations? Do you agree with his point of view?

c) “The Victorians did have the capacity to build a computer. What they didn’t have was the vision to see why they should want to.” the curator of computing at London’s Science Museum Doron Swade.

 

3 Work in groups of 3-4. Make a list of things you would like to know about Charles Babbage. Choose one, find information and make a poster presentation. (Read instruction on page 33 task 2)