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abbey
Complex of buildings housing a monastery or convent under the direction of an abbot or abbess, serving the needs of a self-contained religious community. The first abbey was Monte Cassino in Italy, founded in 529 by St. Benedict of Nursia. The cloister linked the most important elements of an abbey together. The dormitory was often built over the dining hall on the E side of the cloister and linked to the central church. The W side of the cloister provided for public dealings, with the gatehouse controlling the only opening to the outer, public courtyard. On the S side of the cloister were a central kitchen, brewery, and workshops. The novitiate and infirmary were housed in a building with its own chapel, bathhouse, dining hall, kitchen, and garden. In the 12th-13th cent., many abbeys were built throughout Europe, especially in France.
Babbage
British mathematician and inventor. Educated at Cambridge Univ., he devoted himself from c.1812 to devising machines capable of calculating mathematical tables. His first small calculator could perform certain computations to eight decimals. In 1823 he obtained government support for the design of a projected machine with a 20-decimal capacity. In the 1830s he developed plans for the so-called analytical engine, capable of performing any arithmetical operation on the basis of instructions from punched cards, a memory unit in which to store numbers, sequential control, and most of the other basic elements of the present-day computer. The forerunner of the modern digital computer, the analytical engine was never completed. In 1991 British scientists built Difference Engine No. 2 (accurate to 31 digits) to Babbage's specifications. His other contributions included establishing the modern postal system in England, compiling the first reliable actuarial tables, and inventing the locomotive cowcatcher.
Babel
Russian short-story writer. Born Jewish in Ukraine, Babel grew up in an atmosphere of persecution that is reflected in his stories. M. Gorky encouraged him to travel abroad to expand his horizons. Out of his experience as a soldier in the war with Poland came the stories in Red Cavalry (1926). His Odessa Tales (1931) include realistic and humorous sketches of the Jewish ghetto outside Odessa. Initially well regarded in the Soviet Union, in the late 1930s Babel's writing was found incompatible with official literary doctrine. He was arrested in 1939 and died in a Siberian prison camp. He is often thought of as Russia's greatest writer of short stories after A. Chekhov.
In the Old Testament, a high tower built in Shinar (Babylonia). According to Genesis 11:1-9, the Babylonians wanted to build a tower "with its top in the heavens." Angry at their presumption, God disrupted the enterprise by confusing the languages of the workers so that they could no longer understand each other. The tower was left unfinished and the people dispersed over the face ...
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