The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer (Pantheon Graphic Library)

by Sydney Padua

Winner of the British Book Design and Production Award for Graphic Novels
Winner of the Neumann Prize in the History of Mathematics

In The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage Sydney Padua transforms one of the most compelling scientific collaborations into a hilarious set of adventures

Meet two of Victorian London's greatest geniuses... Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron: mathematician, gambler, and proto-programmer, whose writings contained the first ever appearance of general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. And Charles Babbage, eccentric inventor of the Difference Engine, an enormous clockwork calculating machine that would have been the first computer, if he had ever finished it.

But what if things had been different? The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage presents a delightful alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine and use it to create runaway economic models, battle the scourge of spelling errors, explore the wider realms of mathematics and, of course, fight crime - for the sake of both London and science. Extremely funny and utterly unusual, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage comes complete with historical curiosities, extensive footnotes and never-before-seen diagrams of Babbage's mechanical, steam-powered computer. And ray guns.

• ISBN10: 0141981512
• ISBN13: 9780141981512
• Publish Date: 23 April 2015 (first published 21 April 2015)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 5 January 2017
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Particular Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Most excellent, even if I did start to lose my attention when the actual mechanics of the Difference or Analytical Engine started, I'm a true user, no real interest in how it works, I care about the output. It's both biography and fiction and makes me wonder what would have happened if someone had made Babbage build his engine, though I have a sneaking suspicion that a cattle prod would have been needed.

Lovelace would still have died of cancer tho.

Made me also think about how good enough is better than never done.