Charlie Babbage's Dream Machine

Maggie Shiels/BBC: Victorian 'supercomputer' is reborn
Designed by the 19th Century computer pioneer Charles Babbage, the Difference Engine No 2 is a piece of Victorian technology meant to compute mathematical expressions called polynomials and return results to more than 31 digits, knocking the socks off your souped up pocket calculator.

At least as interesting as the machine is the man who funded the building of it: Nathan Myhrvold. Consistently proving the basic truism that we have been given all the information necessary to advance the species to any level desirable. The trick is to ask the right questions.

[Read the profile @ Malcolm Gladwell's Annals of Innovation, New Yorker/12 May) || Image © BBC].