When the first mechanical calculators were invented how did they benefit people and change lives?
To some extent, this depends on what you call a “calculator.” The origins of the abacus are lost in time, but it was pretty clearly a simple aid for arithmetic from near its inception. Some historians think that the Antikythera mechanism http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/… is the oldest known example of a mechanical computing device, and believe that it was an astrolabe, or a device used to predict astrological events. Others dispute this view. In modern times, Charles Babbage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bab… and Lady Ada Lovelace http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/lovelac… worked on Babbage’s idea for a programmable “difference engine.” http://en.wikip
