Charles Babbage - Revision history

Wtrettien: /* Ninth Bridgewater Treatise */

2026-01-21T17:23:38Z

Ninth Bridgewater Treatise

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 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_Board_of_Regents_of/bc4rAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA289&printsec=frontcover
 == Ninth Bridgewater Treatise ==
 Individuals attribute their own imperfect understandings to that of God

Wtrettien at 17:22, 21 January 2026

2026-01-21T17:22:54Z

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	https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_Board_of_Regents_of/bc4rAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA289&printsec=frontcover		https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_Board_of_Regents_of/bc4rAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA289&printsec=frontcover

			== Ninth Bridgewater Treatise ==


			Individuals attribute their own imperfect understandings to that of God

			Must base understanding in facts and arguments, not wild fancies of passion or of impulse

			Chapter 2

			Uses example of Calculating Engine: imagine a wheel, showing a series of numbers; “how long you will have counted before you are firmly convinced that the engine has been so adjusted that it will continue whilst its motion is maintained, to produce the same series of natural numbers?” (35)

			But what if the law changes as 100 million, to go up by triangular numbers multipled by 10,000? And then law fails again after 2761? Etc

			Observer would have to change the law he deduced from observation; and the adjustment “might have been as fully foreknown as the commencement, as was the regular succession” (39) — but we don’t know the reason, except it is “a necessary consequence of the mechanical structure of the engine” (39)

			Imagine a second engine, wherein the laws could be changed at any time

			“Which of these two engines would, in the reader’s opinion, give the higher proof of skill in the contriver?” (40) — the one that needed no intervention but was designed from the start (even though we can’t thought present means of analysis understand its design)

			Analogy to changes in nature — there is a design created by ‘a degree of power and of knowledge of a far higher order” (46) — e.g. findings of geology

			Chapter 3

			Before printing, “accidental position determined the opinions and the knowledge of the great mass of mankind” (52) — only oral information accessible — after printing, knowledge can accumulate, science can advance

			Chapter 4, 5

			Geology suggests earth is millions of years old, contradicting Genesis in Bible; ample evidence from geology at this point

			Attempts to reconcile genesis with scientific understanding; offers historicist interpretation of Bible

			Chapter 6

			On desire for immortality; many dashes set between paragraphs

			Chapter 7

			Meditation on deep time

			Chapter 8

			Miracles are not deviations from God’s law’s but “the exact fulfillment of much. More extensive laws than those we suppose to exist” (93)

			Example of the engine again — imagine a maker who can push a lever on the engine, and one instance in the series changes before going back to normal order

			Example of conical refraction and experimentation

			Chapter 9

			Once we speak, we quickly hear the sound and then it becomes inaudible; but the movements of air caused continue to reverberate; a being that could see all movements of atoms could see “the circumstances of the future history of the whole of the earth’s atmosphere” (112)

			Could also look back and find the origins of chaos

			“Thus considered, what a strange chaos is this wide atmosphere we breathe! Every atom impressed with good and with ill, retains at once the motions which philosophers and sages have imparted to it, mixed and combined in ten thousand ways with all that is worthless and base. The air itself is one vast library, on whose pages are for ever written all that man has ever said or even whispered. There, in their mutable but unerring characters, mixed with the earliest, as well as the latest sighs of mortality, stand for ever recorded, vows unredeemed, promises unfulfilled, perpetuating in the united movements of each particle, the testimony of man’s changeful will.” (112-3)

			“No motion impressed by natural causes, or by human agency, is ever obliterated.” (114)

			Chapter 10

			On Hume’s argument against miracles; using math to analyze it

			Chapter 11

			Imagine calculating engine, can follow any algebraic law — while calculating, can also switch to any other law, then revert back

			Using thought experiment to argue against Hume

			Chapter 12

			Pain of doing something wrong; knowledge creates virtue by enabling us to learn from mistakes

			Advocating for advances in science to know better

			Chapter 13

			Imagine the calculating engine could change its laws, but “at a time not foreseen by the person employing the engine” (152)

			Chapter 14

			Thoughts on the origin of evil — but a fragment saying he was unable to complete it

			Appendix, Note B, “On the calculating engine”

	== Bibliography ==		== Bibliography ==

Wtrettien at 20:30, 13 August 2024

2024-08-13T20:30:43Z

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	1871: died		1871: died


			== Tables of Constants in Nature and Art ==

			https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_Board_of_Regents_of/bc4rAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA289&printsec=frontcover


	== Bibliography ==		== Bibliography ==

	[[Essinger 2004]]		[[Essinger 2004]]

			[[Hacking 1990]], chapter 7, discusses his interest in constants and developing the "Tables of Constants in Nature and Art"

	Great paper on Ada Lovelace's computer program: https://twobithistory.org/2018/08/18/ada-lovelace-note-g.html#:~:text=She%2C%20too%2C%20wrote%20a%20program,the%20world's%20first%20computer%20program		Great paper on Ada Lovelace's computer program: https://twobithistory.org/2018/08/18/ada-lovelace-note-g.html#:~:text=She%2C%20too%2C%20wrote%20a%20program,the%20world's%20first%20computer%20program

	Demo of Difference Engine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlbQsKpq3Ak		Demo of Difference Engine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlbQsKpq3Ak

Wtrettien at 14:06, 2 November 2022

2022-11-02T14:06:40Z

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	Great paper on Ada Lovelace's computer program: https://twobithistory.org/2018/08/18/ada-lovelace-note-g.html#:~:text=She%2C%20too%2C%20wrote%20a%20program,the%20world's%20first%20computer%20program		Great paper on Ada Lovelace's computer program: https://twobithistory.org/2018/08/18/ada-lovelace-note-g.html#:~:text=She%2C%20too%2C%20wrote%20a%20program,the%20world's%20first%20computer%20program

			Demo of Difference Engine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlbQsKpq3Ak

Wtrettien at 14:06, 2 November 2022

2022-11-02T14:06:08Z

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	[[Essinger 2004]]		[[Essinger 2004]]

			Great paper on Ada Lovelace's computer program: https://twobithistory.org/2018/08/18/ada-lovelace-note-g.html#:~:text=She%2C%20too%2C%20wrote%20a%20program,the%20world's%20first%20computer%20program

Wtrettien at 18:46, 24 March 2022

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	1840, August: leaves England for Paris then Lyons and Turin		1840, August: leaves England for Paris then Lyons and Turin

			1842, 3 November: letter from exchequer saying government was abandoning support for difference engine

	1871: died		1871: died

Wtrettien at 18:35, 24 March 2022

2022-03-24T18:35:33Z

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	1839, December: writes letter to François Jean Dominique Arago requesting copy of Jacquard portrait woven by Jacquard loom and any memoirs about him ([[Essinger 2004]], 46-7)		1839, December: writes letter to François Jean Dominique Arago requesting copy of Jacquard portrait woven by Jacquard loom and any memoirs about him ([[Essinger 2004]], 46-7)

			1840, August: leaves England for Paris then Lyons and Turin

	1871: died		1871: died

Wtrettien: /* Timeline */

2022-03-20T16:37:42Z

Timeline

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	1821-1833: working on automatic cogwheel-based machine to calculate and print mathematical tables, the Difference Engine		1821-1833: working on automatic cogwheel-based machine to calculate and print mathematical tables, the Difference Engine

	1822, Spring: had assembled small cogwheel mechanism, demonstrates it to Royal Astronomical Society on June 2, 1822 and open letter to Sir Humphrey Davy, president of Royal Society, July 3, 1822		1822, Spring: had assembled small cogwheel mechanism, demonstrates it to Royal Astronomical Society on June 2, 1822 and open letter to Sir Humphrey Davy, president of Royal Society, July 3, 1822, second paper to Royal Astronomical Society on 13 December

	1823, July 21: gov't grant of 1500 pounds		1823, July 21: gov't grant of 1500 pounds
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	1832: finishes 1/7th of Difference Engine		1832: finishes 1/7th of Difference Engine

	1834, December: conceives of Analytical Engine, not just for mathematical calculations, using punched cards of Jacquard's loom		1834, December: conceives of Analytical Engine, not just for mathematical calculations, using punched cards of Jacquard's loom; on December 15, Lady Byron writes about his excitement over discovery in her journal ([[ESsinger 2004]], 81-2)

	1839, December: writes letter to François Jean Dominique Arago requesting copy of Jacquard portrait woven by Jacquard loom and any memoirs about him ([[Essinger 2004]], 46-7)		1839, December: writes letter to François Jean Dominique Arago requesting copy of Jacquard portrait woven by Jacquard loom and any memoirs about him ([[Essinger 2004]], 46-7)

Wtrettien at 16:30, 20 March 2022

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	1819: travels with his friend John Herschel to France, meeting intellectuals; probably sees Le Tables du Cadastre of the French Ordnance Survey undertaken by Baron Gaspard de Prony; de Prony organizes 3 commitees to make and check calculations, result is logarithmic tables in 17 folio ms volumes, wanted to print them but proved to be difficult/costly ([[Essinger 2004]], 60)		1819: travels with his friend John Herschel to France, meeting intellectuals; probably sees Le Tables du Cadastre of the French Ordnance Survey undertaken by Baron Gaspard de Prony; de Prony organizes 3 commitees to make and check calculations, result is logarithmic tables in 17 folio ms volumes, wanted to print them but proved to be difficult/costly ([[Essinger 2004]], 60)

			1821, Summer: Royal Astronomical Society asks Babbage and Herschel to check astronomical tables; tedious work, Babbage says: "How I wish these calculations could be executed by steam!" ([[Essinger 2004]], 66); sets him off thinking about Difference Engine

	1821-1833: working on automatic cogwheel-based machine to calculate and print mathematical tables, the Difference Engine		1821-1833: working on automatic cogwheel-based machine to calculate and print mathematical tables, the Difference Engine

	1827: father Benjamin dies, he inherits his wealth		1822, Spring: had assembled small cogwheel mechanism, demonstrates it to Royal Astronomical Society on June 2, 1822 and open letter to Sir Humphrey Davy, president of Royal Society, July 3, 1822

			1823, July 21: gov't grant of 1500 pounds

			1827, February 27: father Benjamin dies, he inherits his wealth

			1827, August/September: wife Georgiana dies

			1832: finishes 1/7th of Difference Engine

			1834, December: conceives of Analytical Engine, not just for mathematical calculations, using punched cards of Jacquard's loom

	1839, December: writes letter to François Jean Dominique Arago requesting copy of Jacquard portrait woven by Jacquard loom and any memoirs about him ([[Essinger 2004]], 46-7)		1839, December: writes letter to François Jean Dominique Arago requesting copy of Jacquard portrait woven by Jacquard loom and any memoirs about him ([[Essinger 2004]], 46-7)

Wtrettien at 16:23, 20 March 2022

2022-03-20T16:23:23Z

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	1871: died		1871: died

			== Bibliography ==

			[[Essinger 2004]]