This is a repeating event

The Difference Engine: Pre-Show Lobby Demonstration

The Difference Engine: Pre-Show Lobby Demonstration22sep7:00 pm7:00 pm(GMT-04:00)

Event Details

Come see this brief theater-lobby live demonstration, using a digital simulation.

Charles Babbage invented his Difference Engine in 1821: an automatic calculating machine, complete with a printing apparatus. Though it wasn’t fully realized for 200 years, it is recognized as one of the great intellectual achievements of the 19th century – along with Babbage’s Analytical Engine, which has many essential features found in the modern computer. And the Difference Engine is the inciting event for the play, Ada and the Engine. How did it work?

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Speakers for this event

  • Dick Rubinstein

    Dick Rubinstein

    Dick Rubinstein created many props for Ada and the Engine, including a replica of the Difference Engine model that Charles Babbage used to demonstrate his ideas in his famous salons. He also made the Difference Engine simulator displayed in the theater lobby, and its demonstrations. He’s delighted to return to Central Square Theater, where he last consulted on Breaking the Code, another play that focuses on people in the history of science and technology. Dick likes to make and fix things, and has a workspace at the Artisan’s Asylum, a maker space in Somerville. His degrees are in engineering and social science, a combination that led to a career in human factors and user experience. That’s not so different from designing sets and props: whatever the technology on the inside, how should the outside be designed to connect with the people who interact with it?