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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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Charles Babbage
Age: 79 †
Born: 1791
Born: December 26
Died: 1871
Died: October 18
Astronomer
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London
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More quotes by Charles Babbage

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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.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Scientific knowledge scarcely exists amongst the higher classes of society. The discussion in the Houses of Lords or of Commons, which arise on the occurrence of any subjects connected with science, sufficiently prove this fact.
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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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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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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There are few circumstances which so strongly distinguish the philosopher, as the calmness with which he can reply to criticisms he may think undeservedly severe.
Charles Babbage
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It is difficult to estimate the misery inflicted upon thousands of persons, and the absolute pecuniary penalty imposed upon multitudes of intellectual workers by the loss of their time, destroyed by organ-grinders and other similar nuisances.
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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At each increase of knowledge, as well as on the contrivance of every new tool, human labour becomes abridged.
Charles Babbage
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The first steps in the path of discovery, and the first approximate measures, are those which add most to the existing knowledge of mankind.
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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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