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I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.

Charles Babbage

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Charles Babbage
Age: 79 †
Born: 1791
Born: December 26
Died: 1871
Died: October 18
Astronomer
Computer Scientist
Economist
Engineer
Inventor
Mathematician
Philosopher
University Teacher
London
England
Calculations
Steam
Statistics
Mathematical
Math
Mathematics
Wish
Executed

More quotes by Charles Babbage

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Long intervals frequently elapse between the discovery of new principles in science and their practical application... Those intellectual qualifications, which give birth to new principles or to new methods, are of quite a different order from those which are necessary for their practical application.
Charles Babbage
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You will be able to appreciate the influence of such an Engine on the future progress of science. I live in a country which is incapable of estimating it.
Charles Babbage
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Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
Charles Babbage
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Surely, if knowledge is valuable, it can never be good policy in a country far wealthier than Tuscany, to allow a genius like Mr. Dalton's, to be employed in the drudgery of elementary instruction.
Charles Babbage
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The quantity of meaning compressed into small space by algebraic signs, is another circumstance that facilitates the reasonings we are accustomed to carry on by their aid.
Charles Babbage
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Forging differs from hoaxing, inasmuch as in the later the deceit is intended to last for a time, and then be discovered, to the ridicule of those who have credited it whereas the forger is one who, wishing to acquire a reputation for science, records observations which he has never made.
Charles Babbage
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The economy of human time is the next advantage of machinery in manufactures.
Charles Babbage
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On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
Charles Babbage
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The accumulation of skill and science which has been directed to diminish the difficulty of producing manufactured goods, has not been beneficial to that country alone in which it is concentrated distant kingdoms have participated in its advantages.
Charles Babbage
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An object is frequently not seen, from not knowing how to see it, rather than from any defect of the organ of vision.
Charles Babbage
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I have no desire to write my own biography, as long as I have strength and means to do better work.
Charles Babbage
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Some kinds of nails, such as those used for defending the soles of coarse shoes, called hobnails, require a particular form of the head, which is made by the stroke of a die.
Charles Babbage
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As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of the science. Whenever any result is sought by its aid, the question will then arise — by what course of calculation can these results be arrived at by the machine in the shortest time?
Charles Babbage
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Mr. Herschel... brought with him the calculations of the computers, and we commenced the tedious process of verification. After a time many discrepancies occurred, and at one point these discordances were so numerous that I exclaimed, I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam, to which Herschel replied, It is quite possible
Charles Babbage
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Mechanical Notation ... I look upon it as one of the most important additions I have made to human knowledge. It has placed the construction of machinery in the rank of a demonstrative science. The day will arrive when no school of mechanical drawing will be thought complete without teaching it.
Charles Babbage
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For one person who is blessed with the power of invention, many will always be found who have the capacity of applying principles.
Charles Babbage
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Miracles may be, for anything we know to the contrary, phenomena of a higher order of God's laws, superior to, and, under certain conditions, controlling the inferior order known to us as the ordinary laws of nature.
Charles Babbage
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A young man passes from our public schools to the universities, ignorant almost of the elements of every branch of useful knowledge.
Charles Babbage
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A tool is usually more simple than a machine it is generally used with the hand, whilst a machine is frequently moved by animal or steam power.
Charles Babbage
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Another mode of accumulating power arises from lifting a weight and then allowing it to fall.
Charles Babbage