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Herschel helped by making tidal observations off the coast of South Africa,
赫歇爾幫助在南非海岸建立了潮汐觀察站，
and, as he complained to Whewell,
有一次，他向胡威立抱怨，
he was knocked off the docks during a violent high tide for his trouble.
他有一次因?yàn)槭д`而在碼頭被一個(gè)大浪沖倒了。
The four men really helped each other in every way.
這四個(gè)人真的做到了相互幫助。
They also relentlessly lobbied the British government for the money to build Babbage's engines
他們不知疲倦的游說英國政府撥款建造巴貝奇的差分機(jī)
because they believed these engines would have a huge practical impact on society.
因?yàn)樗麄兿嘈胚@些引擎能夠?qū)ι鐣?huì)產(chǎn)生非常大的積極影響。
In the days before pocket calculators, the numbers that most professionals needed
在沒有電子計(jì)算器的年代，很多行業(yè)需要用到數(shù)據(jù)
bankers, insurance agents, ship captains, engineers, were to be found in lookup books like this, filled with tables of figures.
銀行家、保險(xiǎn)代理人、船長、工程師都只能通過這樣的大部頭書中查找，書里面是預(yù)先計(jì)算好的各種數(shù)字表格。
These tables were calculated using a fixed procedure over and over
這些表格都是由一些臨時(shí)工--被稱作“人工計(jì)算機(jī)”--
by part-time workers known as -- and this is amazing -- computers,
依據(jù)固定的計(jì)算過程一遍一遍算出來的，
but these calculations were really difficult.
但是這些計(jì)算真的很復(fù)雜。
I mean, this nautical almanac published the lunar differences for every month of the year.
例如這份航海歷就計(jì)算了一年中每個(gè)月份的月相差異。
Each month required 1,365 calculations, so these tables were filled with mistakes.
每個(gè)月都需要1365個(gè)計(jì)算結(jié)果，所以這些表格里面錯(cuò)誤重重。
Babbage's difference engine was the first mechanical calculator devised to accurately compute any of these tables.
巴貝奇的差分機(jī)是第一個(gè)能夠用來精確計(jì)算表格中任何結(jié)果的機(jī)器。
Two models of his engine were built in the last 20 years
二十年前，倫敦科學(xué)博物館的
by a team from the Science Museum of London using his own plans.
一個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)根據(jù)他的圖紙建造了兩臺(tái)差分機(jī)。
This is the one now at the Computer History Museum in California, and it calculates accurately. It actually works.
圖中這個(gè)現(xiàn)在位于加州計(jì)算機(jī)歷史博物館，它現(xiàn)在仍可精確進(jìn)行計(jì)算。它實(shí)際還是可以使用的。
