I’ve heard from Claire Barker (
FrameOnFrame) that after many months of rumination over
Babbage she is now pushing out of the quicksand of research and onto the lower slopes of
scriptwriting. Good luck to her. Having just finished a reread of
The Cogwheel Brain (by Doron Swade) the penny dropped as to why I felt some sympathy for Babbage. The Book covers Babbage’s struggles with Difference Engines #1&2 and his even more challenging Analytical Engine, it then covers a modern reconstruction of Difference Engine #2 by the Science Museum. Babbage’s story is about human nature, the struggle to progress, the thirst to understand our world and the need to be greater than we are. When I was at secondary school I chose to take on the building of a pendulum clock for my science project. Every lesson I worked frantically on the project, arriving early, leaving late. The net result was an A. And how far did I get with the clock? I hadn’t finished the cogs! Each had to be hand made from solid brass and filed to a specific shape. Long after I should have finished the project my teacher finally took the pieces from me saying “You’ve done enough… no one could ask for more effort… go on off to the playground”. I’d forgotten the A, but if someone had stopped Babbage after DE #1 and said “Well done… you’ve done enough… take an A”. Then he may have had a happier more rewarding (in terms of recognition) life and been able devote his great brain to projects that would have had a direct impact and linkage to our time. Effectively Babbage’s failure to stop developing and follow-through any engine build condemned British research and development into mechanical and then electromechanical calculation into the wilderness of inactivity for around 100 years. Not until the 1940s did the threat of Adolf Hitler act as a driving force for building arguably the world’s
first computer. Babbage’s story is a Shakespearean tragedy of what might have been.
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I’ve heard from Claire Barker (FrameOnFrame) that after many months of rumination over Babbage she is now pushing out of the quicksand of research and onto the lower slopes of scriptwriting. Good luck to her. Having just finished a reread of The Cogwheel Brain (by Doron Swade) the penny dropped as to why I felt some sympathy for Babbage. The Book covers Babbage’s struggles with Difference Engines #1&2 and his even more challenging Analytical Engine, it then covers a modern reconstruction of Difference Engine #2 by the Science Museum. Babbage’s story is about human nature, the struggle to progress, the thirst to understand our world and the need to be greater than we are. When I was at secondary school I chose to take on the building of a pendulum clock for my science project. Every lesson I worked frantically on the project, arriving early, leaving late. The net result was an A. And how far did I get with the clock? I hadn’t finished the cogs! Each had to be hand made from solid brass and filed to a specific shape. Long after I should have finished the project my teacher finally took the pieces from me saying “You’ve done enough… no one could ask for more effort… go on off to the playground”. I’d forgotten the A, but if someone had stopped Babbage after DE #1 and said “Well done… you’ve done enough… take an A”. Then he may have had a happier more rewarding (in terms of recognition) life and been able devote his great brain to projects that would have had a direct impact and linkage to our time. Effectively Babbage’s failure to stop developing and follow-through any engine build condemned British research and development into mechanical and then electromechanical calculation into the wilderness of inactivity for around 100 years. Not until the 1940s did the threat of Adolf Hitler act as a driving force for building arguably the world’s first computer. Babbage’s story is a Shakespearean tragedy of what might have been.
