Perfume and Babbage’s Analytical Engine: what they have in common
- Step 1. Perfume — uses — Spray bottle. A sprayer.
- Step 2. Spray bottle — has part — Check valve. A valve.
- Step 3. Check valve — is part of — Bellows. An air intake valve.
- Step 4. Bellows — is part of — Player piano. Pedal bellows create suction.
- Step 5. Player piano — works like — Jacquard loom. A perforated medium controls a machine — a weaving one in one case, a musical one in the other.
- Step 6. Jacquard loom — inspired — Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Babbage borrowed Jacquard’s punched cards directly for entering operations and data; Ada Lovelace compared the machine to the Jacquard loom.