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A difference engine is an automatic mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. It was designed in the 1820s, and was created by Charles Babbage . The name difference engine is derived from the method of finite differences , a way to interpolate or tabulate functions by using a small set of polynomial co-efficients.
The Science Museum's Difference Engine No. 2, built from Babbage's design Portion of Babbage's difference engine. Babbage began in 1822 with what he called the difference engine, made to compute values of polynomial functions. It was created to calculate a series of values automatically.
In mathematics, divided differences is an algorithm, historically used for computing tables of logarithms and trigonometric functions. [citation needed] Charles Babbage's difference engine, an early mechanical calculator, was designed to use this algorithm in its operation.
The Difference Engine (1990) is an alternative history novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. It is widely regarded as a book that helped establish the genre conventions of steampunk . It posits a Victorian-era Britain in which great technological and social change has occurred after entrepreneurial inventor Charles Babbage succeeded in ...
Scheutz's calculator He is most known for his inventions; the best known of these is the Scheutzian calculation engine , invented in 1837 and finalized in 1843. This machine, which he constructed with his son Edvard Scheutz, was based on Charles Babbage 's difference engine .
A partially disassembled Curta calculator, showing the digit slides and the stepped drum behind them Curta Type I calculator, top view Curta Type I calculator, bottom view. The Curta is a hand-held mechanical calculator designed by Curt Herzstark. [1] It is known for its extremely compact design: a small cylinder that fits in the palm of the hand.
Difference Engine, 1822 – Charles Babbage's mechanical device to calculate polynomials. Analytical Engine, 1837 – A later Charles Babbage device that could be said to encapsulate most of the elements of modern computers. Odhner Arithmometer, 1873 – W. T. Odhner's calculator who had millions of clones manufactured until the 1970s.
The analytical engine was a proposed digital mechanical general-purpose computer designed by English mathematician and computer pioneer Charles Babbage. [2] [3] It was first described in 1837 as the successor to Babbage's Difference Engine, which was a design for a simpler mechanical calculator.