English mathematician, who lived from 1792 to 1871, and inventor, famous for
his attempts to develop a mechanical computational aid he called the analytical engine. Although it was never constructed and was decimal rather than binary (see Numeration) in conception, it clearly anticipated the modern digital Computer. A scientist with extremely broad interests, Babbage probed the roles of
learned societies and government in advancing science, and wrote on mass production
and on what is now called operational research.