Editing Charles Babbage (section)

===Royal Astronomical Society===
Babbage was instrumental in founding the [[Royal Astronomical Society]] in 1820, initially known as the Astronomical Society of London.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Babbage.html|title=Babbage biography|website=History.mcs.st-and.ac.uk|access-date=21 December 2017}}</ref> Its original aims were to reduce astronomical calculations to a more standard form, and to circulate data.<ref>{{cite book| first= Martin | last=Campbell-Kelly | authorlink= Martin Campbell-Kelly |title=The History of Mathematical Tables: From Sumer to Spreadsheets| at=[https://books.google.com/books?id=O170gWPZ7M8C&pg=PA8 p. 8]|year= 2003|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-850841-0|title-link= The History of Mathematical Tables}}</ref> These directions were closely connected with Babbage's ideas on computation, and in 1824 he won its [[Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society|Gold Medal]], cited "for his invention of an engine for calculating [[Mathematical table|mathematical]] and [[Ephemeris|astronomical tables]]".<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Buxton|first1=Harry Wilmot|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=jrUmAAAAMAAJ|title=Memoir of the Life and Labours of the Late Charles Babbage Esq., F.R.S.|last2=Tomash|first2=Erwin|date=1988|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-02269-9|location= Cambridge|pages=77|language=en}}</ref>

Babbage's motivation to overcome errors in tables by mechanisation had been a commonplace since [[Dionysius Lardner]] wrote about it in 1834 in the ''[[Edinburgh Review]]'' (under Babbage's guidance).<ref>{{cite book|first1=Raymond | last1=Flood | authorlink1=Raymond Flood (mathematician) | first2=Adrian | last2= Rice| first3=Robin | last3=Wilson | authorlink3= Robin Wilson (mathematician) |title=Mathematics in Victorian Britain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YruifIx88AQC&pg=PA34|year=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn= 978-0-19-162794-1|page=34}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| first=Harro | last= Maas|title=William Stanley Jevons and the Making of Modern Economics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aGWvA6SiWfMC&pg=PA201|year= 2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-82712-6|page= 201}}</ref> The context of these developments is still debated. Babbage's own account of the origin of the difference engine begins with the Astronomical Society's wish to improve ''[[The Nautical Almanac]]''. Babbage and Herschel were asked to oversee a trial project, to recalculate some part of those tables. With the results to hand, discrepancies were found. This was in 1821 or 1822, and was the occasion on which Babbage formulated his idea for mechanical computation.<ref>{{cite book| first=M. Norton | last= Wise|title=The values of precision|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g8uvNtuPhgUC&pg=PA320|year=1997|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-01601-6|page= 320}}</ref> The issue of the ''Nautical Almanac'' is now described as a legacy of a polarisation in British science caused by attitudes to [[Sir Joseph Banks]], who had died in 1820.<ref>{{cite book|first1= Eleanor |last1= Robson| first2=Jacqueline |last2= Stedall|title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Mathematics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HIMiWHVKLDkC&pg=RA1-PR34|access-date=25 April 2013|date=18 December 2008|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn= 978-0-19-160744-8|page=xxxiv}}</ref>
[[File:Difference engine plate 1853.jpg|thumb|A portion of the [[difference engine]]]]
Babbage studied the requirements to establish a modern [[postal system]], with his friend [[Thomas Frederick Colby]], concluding there should be a uniform rate that was put into effect with the introduction of the [[Uniform Fourpenny Post]] supplanted by the [[Uniform Penny Post]]<ref>{{cite book|author=Anthony Hyman|title=[[Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Computer]]|year=1985|publisher= [[Princeton University Press]]|isbn= 978-0-691-02377-9|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YCddaWqWK2cC&pg=PA115 115]}}</ref> in 1839 and 1840. Colby was another of the founding group of the Society.<ref name="Hyman1985">{{cite book|first=Anthony |last= Hyman|title=[[Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Computer]]|year=1985|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-02377-9|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=YCddaWqWK2cC&pg=PA45 45]}}</ref> He was also in charge of the [[Survey of Ireland]]. Herschel and Babbage were present at a celebrated operation of that survey, the remeasuring of the [[Lough Foyle]] baseline.<ref>{{cite book|publisher=Royal Institution of Great Britain|title=Proceedings|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LxNcKnmdDTIC&pg=PA518|year=1858|page=518}}</ref>