A computer is a programmable device for processing, storing, and displaying information. Learn more in this article about modern digital electronic computers and their design, constituent parts, and applications as well as about the history of computing.
A computer is a machine that can store and process information. Most computers rely on a binary system, which uses two variables, 0 and 1, to complete tasks such as storing data, calculating algorithms, and displaying information. Computers come in many different shapes and sizes, from smartphones to supercomputers weighing more than 300 tons.
Computer - Supercomputing, Processing, Speed: The most powerful computers of the day have typically been called supercomputers. They have historically been very expensive and their use limited to high-priority computations for government-sponsored research, such as nuclear simulations and weather modeling. Today many of the computational techniques of early supercomputers are in common use in ...
Charles Babbage, English mathematician and inventor who is credited with having conceived the first automatic digital computer. He designed two calculating devices, the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine, neither of which were fully built. Learn more about Babbage in this article.
Computer - Technology, Invention, History: By the second decade of the 19th century, a number of ideas necessary for the invention of the computer were in the air. First, the potential benefits to science and industry of being able to automate routine calculations were appreciated, as they had not been a century earlier. Specific methods to make automated calculation more practical, such as ...
Ada Lovelace, English mathematician, an associate of Charles Babbage, for whose digital computer prototype, the Analytical Engine, she created a program in 1843. She has been called the first computer programmer. Ada Lovelace Day, the second Tuesday in October, honors women’s contributions to science and technology.