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rovingjack

on Dec. 16, 2009

In 1824, Charles Babbage won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society "for his invention of an engine for calculating mathematical and astronomical tables." He was a founding member of the society and one of its oldest living members on his death in 1871.

From 1828 to 1839 Babbage was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. He contributed to several scientific periodicals, and was instrumental in founding the Astronomical Society in 1820 and the Statistical Society in 1834. He dreamt of designing mechanical calculating machines.

In 1837 he published his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, "On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation". The book is a work of natural theology, and incorporates extracts from correspondence he had been having with John Herschel on the subject.

Babbage also achieved notable results in cryptography. Babbage's discoveries in the feild were used to aid English military campaigns, and were not published until several years later.

In 1838, Babbage invented the pilot (also called a cow-catcher), the metal frame attached to the front of locomotives that clears the tracks of obstacles.

He also constructed a dynamometer car and performed several studies on Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Western Railway in about 1838.

Babbage also invented an ophthalmoscope.

Babbage twice stood for Parliament as a candidate for the borough of Finsbury.

In On the Economy of Machine and Manufacture, Babbage described what is now called the Babbage principle, which describes certain advantages with division of labour.