As you might expect from its name, the "Difference Engine" is a strangely difficult object to describe. You might start by imagining the side of a large crib with uprights ringed by small metal wheels ...

Frustrated by human error, mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage designed a machine to perform mathematical functions and automatically print the results. Library of Congress When today’s number ...

For many of us, the computer is the symbol of our hypermodernity, the image of how vastly we differ--culturally, economically, socially and politically--from past generations. And many of us think of ...