Calculating without electricity

From Antiquity to the time of Einstein, for over twenty centuries, scholars, accountants, and astronomers have used mechanical tools to calculate better and faster.

The collection of the L Museum pays tribute to these ingenious inventions – sometimes modest, often brilliant – that have transformed calculation into a more accessible, and even more beautiful, activity. Pascal, Leibniz, Babbage, and other great names have left their mark here. These calculating machines tell a different story of the history of mathematics: they illustrate the technical creativity of those who sought to advance them.

The book was developed from the collection he bequeathed to the L Museum of UCLouvain.