Babbage and Belli: two peculiar guys

Today´s post is about Charles Babbage and Melvin Belli. Babbage (1791-1871) was a British mathematician and Belli (1907-1996) an American lawyer. No connection between them you might argue and it is true except for the fact that both wrote several books, their fathers were wealthy bankers and -most important- they were pioneers in their respective areas of expertise. There is also a personal emotional connection: I heard about this two guys during my recent stay in San Francisco.

Charles Babbage was a mathematician but also a scientist (when science was not wyet an established profession), a political economist and a prolific inventor. His calculating engines rank as one of the top achivements of the 19th century and mark the start of the era of automatic computation.

 

Despite electricity was not yet invented, the so called analitic machine incorporated many of the characteristics of modern computers: input device, control unit, memory and a output mechanism. He failed to finish the machine due to funding constrains but also because he was a century ahead of his time!

A machine built from Babbage´s design is in exhibition at the Science Museum in London. A exact duplicate can be also seen at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

Melvin Belli´s life has nothing to do with Babbage´s bio. He was a prominent lawyer with many celebrities among his clients, including Hollywood stars such as Zsa Zsa Gabor, Lana Turner or Errol Flynn. He also represented Jack Ruby on trial for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of JK Kennedy.

Belli could also consider himself as an actor as he appeared in several films and TV, including his famous performance of alien Grogan in Star Treck in 1968. Actually his own life was like a film. He wrote more than sixty books about legal issues as well. The title of his autobiography is self-explanatory: "My Life on Trial".

 Belli was called "the King of Torts" for his notorius personal injury cases but also considered as "the Father of Demostrative Evidence" for his pioneer use of photographs, movies, human skeletons, graphics, charts, etc. to illustrate the Court the nature of his clients´ injuries.

Moreover, Belli played a key role on the rising of modern consumer rights regulation with his theory about implied warranty of products, developed in cases like Escola vs. Coca-Cola.