A MECHANICAL FIGURER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue X, 7 March 1896, Page 262

A MECHANICAL FIGURER.

THE BEST CALCULATING MACHINE

INVENTED BY A FRENCHMAN.

A young Frenchman, Leon Bollee, has succeeded in completinga most wonderful calculating machine of his own invention, which outclasses anything in the way of comptometers, adders and registering machinesshownbefore. Thenewmachine does all the figuring automatically, and no matter whether it is a question of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, equation, extraction of roots, reduction or differentiation, the result is arrived at with rapidity hard to believe, andisinvariably correct. At a recent meeting of the Institute of France, Mr Bollee showed and demonstrated his new machine, and the enthusiasm created by the exhibition was so spontaneous that the members of the institute present imme. diately addressed a petition to the Minister of the Interior to confer upon the young inventor the cross of the Legion of Honour. As to its work it is simply perfection itself. Examples were given byseveral mathematicians present, and they figured out some of the results, to test Bollee’s new machine, without finding a single error. One lightning calculator tried to beat the machine with the aid of a so-called comptometer, but when Bollee gave the result, the lightning calculator had only just begun to put down the first row of figures. It is almost impossible to explain in writing how the machine works ; one example may suffice : It took Bollee a trifle less than three seconds to get correct results of the following multiplication: 6, 222,333,444 by 8,888,111,224. which is in figures, 55.304.791,723,086,975.456, or, written out, fifty-five quintillions, three hundred and four quadrillions, seven hundred and ninety-one trillions, seven hundred and twenty-three billions, e'ghty-six millions, nine hundred and seventy-five thousand, and four hundred and fifty-six. The machine is not only an arithmetical wonder, but it is equally'interesting from the standpoint of mechanical ingenuity. It contains no less than 3.000 different parts of steel or copper. It is divided into two distinct and independent sections—the ‘ receiver ’ and the ‘ calculator. * Leon Bollee is only twentyfive years old, but has an enviable record as an inventor. He is the son of a wealthy bell-founder and manufacturer of steam cars, and had excellent training in the mechanical arts early in life. He began work on the calculating machine just described in 1888 at the age of eighteen, and has accomplished much success in other directions, as there are no less than thirty-seven practical inventions of his now patented. Most of these are improvements and independent novelties referring to the propulsion of boats bicycles, automobile carriages, printing machinery, measuring apparatus, timekeeping apparatus for factories, and many other useful objects. Among his admirers he has been nicknamed the ‘ French Edison,’ and with his youth and his record up to date there is no telling where he may bring up yet.