pendulum. pendulum, a mass, called a bob, suspended from a fixed point so that it can swing in an arc determined by its momentum and the force of gravity. The length of a pendulum is the distance from the point of suspension to the center of gravity of the bob (see center of mass). Share | Cite. where T is the period, or time for one complete swing, l is the length, g is the acceleration of gravity (see gravitation), and Ï = 3.14ââ¦ (see harmonic motion). In 1673, Huygens devised a practicable means of making a pendulum control the speed with which a clock mechanism runs.
We could argue that the first computer was the abacus or its descendant, the slide rule, invented by William Oughtred in 1622. But the first computer resembling today's modern machines was the Analytical Engine, a device conceived and designed by British mathematician Charles Babbage between 1833 and 1871.
Back then, the word 'computer,' which first appears in English in the early 1600s, meant a person whose job it was to perform calculations. Instead, Lovelace, who is celebrated on Google's homepage today on what would be her 197th birthday, wrote her program on a hypothetical computer, one that had been developed by the British mathematician and engineer Charles Babbage.