The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Computers have obviously transformed our world.

You wouldn't be listening to my voice right now if it wasn't for computers.

However, the first computers, a device which could perform arbitrary calculations,

actually came well before electronics.

It was made of gears, cogs, and levers, and it was able to perform mathematical calculations as well as run simple programs.

Learn more about Charles Babbage and his analytical engine, the world's first mechanical computer,

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. You've heard the expression that necessity is the mother of invention.

This too is the case with the creation of the world's first computer.

I should note what I'm talking about when I say computer.

In a previous episode I talked about the antiichithra mechanism, which was an ancient

geared device that was found in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece. The antichithra mechanism was a type of

computer insofar as it could predict astronomical events years in the future.

However, it could only do that one thing.

It couldn't be programmed and it couldn't provide different outputs based on different inputs.

The antichithra mechanism was a sophisticated

mechanical device but it was more akin to a clock than a computer. Charles

Babbage, the subject of this episode, was a pretty smart guy. He was a mathematician, an engineer, a philosopher, and an

inventor. Just to give you an idea of how smart he was, he held the Lucassian chair

of mathematics at Cambridge, which was also held by the likes of Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking.

In 1811, Babbage attended Cambridge and found that he knew more about mathematics than his professors did.

And in 1812, he founded the Analytical Society. He became a member of the Royal Society in 1816

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