Babbage Analytical Engine Quotes & Sayings

If you live a long life and get to the end of it without ever once having felt crushingly depressed, then you probably haven't been paying attention. — Duncan MacMillan

I'm not planning a career change - not unless they need someone who constantly falls on the ice and is out of breath all the time. — Scott Wolf

Many persons who are not conversant with mathematical studies imagine that because the business of [Babbage's Analytical Engine] is to give its results in numerical notation, the nature of its processes must consequently be arithmetical and numerical, rather than algebraical and analytical. This is an error. The engine can arrange and combine its numerical quantities exactly as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and in fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made accordingly. — Ada Lovelace

A strong mind perceives its own reality — Unknown

I find no flaw in your reasoning about the Analytical Engine; I admire it; but you are aware that it rests entirely on the hypothesis that I care for the 'whole human race. — Charles Babbage

Meditation is the one thing I do every day - meditate, pray. I do reading in the morning and try to center myself. I play music every day because that is very centering. — Mason Jennings

Assigning invention in cases like this is difficult, and modern writings on technology recognize this. Says computing pioneer Michael Williams:

There is no such thing as "first" in any activity associated with human invention. If you add enough adjectives to a description you can always claim your own favorite. For example the ENIAC is often claimed to be the "first electronic, general purpose, large scale, digital computer" and you certainly have to add all those adjectives before you have a correct statement. If you leave any of them off, then machines such as the ABC, the Colossus, Zuse's Z3, and many others (some not even constructed such as Babbage's Analytical Engine) become candidates for being "first. — W. Brian Arthur

The Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo makes a similar point to Rorty: "We don't reach agreement when we have discovered the truth," he observes; "we say we have discovered the truth when we reach agreement. — Stephen Batchelor

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

Because it's Galen's SUV.
From where I stand, I can see him looking
at me from behind the wheel. His face is
stricken and tired and relieved and pained. I
want to want to want to believe the look in
his eyes right now. The look that clearly says
he's found what he's looking for, in more
ways than one. — Anna Banks

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

What a poem means is as much what it means to others as what it means to the author; and indeed, in the course of time a poet may become merely reader in respect to his own works, forgetting his original meaning. — T. S. Eliot

Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980. — Joni Mitchell