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I don't like it either. I think Babbage saw the machine as implementing a mathematical function, which is why he thought the question was ridiculous. I suspec
by theoh 7y ago
I don't like it either.
I think Babbage saw the machine as implementing a mathematical function, which is why he thought the question was ridiculous.
I suspect that the people who asked the question did not realise that it just calculated a function and were thinking of the behaviour of machines more generally, e.g. their ability to take in rough materials and produce a fine result, or maybe also some kind of canalization whereby approximate inputs would produce a valid and precise output.
- wzdd 7y agoBabbage fairly clearly knew this and was playing up his public persona of "irascible genius who must have everything precisely quantified" for laughs. His autobiography is full of this kind of self-aware self-mockery; another funny example is "Every moment dies a man, every moment 1 1/16 is born" (http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi879.htm http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi879.htm) In other words, the quote isn't written to illustrate the stupidity of politicians, it's written to have a laugh at contextually-oblivious engineers like Babbage.
- theoh 7y agoLooking at the context, I don't buy this explanation. It's ingenious but a bit too subtle to be true. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Passages_from_the_Life_of_a_Philosopher.djvu/83 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Passages_from_the_Life_o...