Charles Babbage invented the iconic metal cowcatcher attached to the front of steam locomotives long before he became famous as the visionary father of the modern computer.

A closer look

Charles Babbage invented the iconic metal cowcatcher attached to the front of steam locomotives long before he became famous as the visionary father of the modern computer. During the early days of rail travel, wandering livestock posed a massive threat to trains, because slamming into a thousand-pound bovine at forty miles per hour tends to derail tons of expensive iron. Babbage engineered a slanted grate designed to aggressively scoop up cows and fling them safely off the tracks, thereby protecting the wealthy passengers inside the carriages. It is incredibly amusing that the brilliant mathematical genius who conceptualized the very foundation of modern algorithmic computing was also the guy tasked with figuring out the most efficient aerodynamic geometry for yeeting an oblivious heifer out of the way of a speeding locomotive. Truly, a mind built for solving the most pressing problems of the nineteenth century