What Does Difference Engine Mean?
The Difference Engine is a machine designed by Charles Babbage in the early 1800s. It was designed to calculate values in polynomial equations, which it did by combining several mechanical adding machines together.
Techopedia Explains Difference Engine
The Difference Engine was a large, heavy mechanical construction operated by a hand crank. Gears moved numerical counters in order to supply complex results. The Difference Engine essentially did the work of scribes who would otherwise sit and compute polynomial tables for mathematics, chemistry or other purposes.