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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

“Perhaps the most important principle on which the economy of a manufacture depends, is the division of labour amongst the persons who perform the work.”

Persons Important Principles Economy Depends Labour Division

Author:Charles Babbage

“That the state of knowledge in any country will exert a directive influence on the general system of instruction adopted in it, is a principle too obvious to require investigation.”

Country States Principles Influence Obvious Instruction Investigation Adopted

Book:Science and Reform: Selected Works of Charles Babbage

Source: Science and Reform: Selected Works of Charles Babbage

“Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible: if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple.”

Source: Scientific and Miscellaneous Papers

“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).

“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

“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.”