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Charles Babbage Quotes

Mathematician

Charles Babbage, born on December 26, 1791 and died on October 18, 1871, was a renowned British mathematician, inventor, and engineer, often referred to as the 'father of computers'. He made significant contributions in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and mechanical engineering, and his designs of the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine laid the foundation for the development of computer science.

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Famous Charles Babbage Quotes

“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.”

Giving Long Different Science Order Principles Creativity Birth Intellectual Discovery Method Practicals Invention Application Intervals Qualifications

Book:Reflections on the Decline of Science in England: And on Some of Its Causes, by Charles Babbage (1830). To which is Added On the Alleged Decline of Science in England, by a Foreigner (Gerard Moll) with a Foreword by Michael Faraday (1831).

Source: Reflections on the Decline of Science in England: And on Some of Its Causes, by Charles Babbage (1830). To which is Added On the Alleged Decline of Science in England, by a Foreigner (Gerard Moll) with a Foreword by Michael Faraday (1831).

“If we look at the fact, we shall find that the great inventions of the age are not, with us at least, always produced in universities.”

Ifs Looks Facts Age University Invention Great Inventions

Book:Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of Its Causes

Source: Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of Its Causes

“For one person who is blessed with the power of invention, many will always be found who have the capacity of applying principles.”

Persons Science Found Principles Capacity Blessed Invention

Book:Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of Its Causes

Source: Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of Its Causes

“Precedents are treated by powerful minds as fetters with which to bind down the weak, as reasons with which to mistify the moderately informed, and as reeds which they themselves fearlessly break through whenever new combinations and difficult emergencies demand their highest efforts.”

Source: Science and Reform: Selected Works of Charles Babbage

“The influence of electricity in producing decompositions, although of inestimable value as an instrument of discovery in chemical inquiries, can hardly be said to have been applied to the practical purposes of life, until the same powerful genius [Davy] which detected the principle, applied it, by a singular felicity of reasoning, to arrest the corrosion of the copper-sheathing of vessels. ... this was regarded as by Laplace as the greatest of Sir Humphry's discoveries.”