UK - 2005
Photos by Tom & Jan Hise
Page created 01/25/2006
Difference Engine No. 2 at Science Museum
Charles Babbage designed this mechanical calculating machine between 1847 and 1849. He aimed to print mathematical tables that were much more accurate than the hand-produced versions available to Victorian engineers, scientists, and navigators. It was called the Difference Engine because it calculated tables of sums automatically using 'the method of finite differences'.
