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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
First published in the United Kingdom in 1999, this is an entertaining biography of Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace, daughter of the renowned poet Lord Byron. Separated from Lord Byron shortly after Ada's birth, Lady Bryon raised her daughter in a strange and thoroughly controlled manner, limiting her access to both people and intellectual pursuits in order to keep Ada from developing any of the shortcomings she might have inherited from her father. As a result, Ada, who suffered from a variety of legitimate health problems, also developed serious psychological problems. As directed by her mother, Ada's educational focus was on science, and her relationship with Charles Babbage and the work she did in explaining and interpreting his Analytical Engine and Difference Machine, a precursor of the computer, were the culmination of her mathematical and technical studies. A fine study of Ada, this book is as much about her mother, Annabella, a woman who would not be crossed and who dominated her daughter's life right up to Ada's death at age 37. There is much controversy associated with Ada's life, and Woolley (Virtual Worlds) deals with it openly and philosophically. Some of his interpretations will surely be questioned, but for a biography filled with "sex, drugs, and mathematics" this is to be expected. Readers who enjoyed Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter will find this interesting.
Book Description
Known in her own day as an enchantress of numbers, Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron, was one of the most fascinating women of the 19th century. In collaboration with Charles Babbage, inventor of the mechanical thinking machine that anticipated by more than a century the invention of the computer, Ada devised a method of using punchcards to calculate Bernoulli numbers, and thus became the mother of computer programming. It was in her honor that, in 1980, the U.S. Department of Defense named its computer language Ada.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1999, this is an entertaining biography of Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace, daughter of the renowned poet Lord Byron. Separated from Lord Byron shortly after Ada's birth, Lady Bryon raised her daughter in a strange and thoroughly controlled manner, limiting her access to both people and intellectual pursuits in order to keep Ada from developing any of the shortcomings she might have inherited from her father. As a result, Ada, who suffered from a variety of legitimate health problems, also developed serious psychological problems. As directed by her mother, Ada's educational focus was on science, and her relationship with Charles Babbage and the work she did in explaining and interpreting his Analytical Engine and Difference Machine, a precursor of the computer, were the culmination of her mathematical and technical studies. A fine study of Ada, this book is as much about her mother, Annabella, a woman who would not be crossed and who dominated her daughter's life right up to Ada's death at age 37. There is much controversy associated with Ada's life, and Woolley (Virtual Worlds) deals with it openly and philosophically. Some of his interpretations will surely be questioned, but for a biography filled with "sex, drugs, and mathematics" this is to be expected. Readers who enjoyed Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter will find this interesting.
Hilary Burton, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, CA
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Known in her own day as an enchantress of numbers, Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron, was one of the most fascinating women of the 19th century. In collaboration with Charles Babbage, inventor of the mechanical thinking machine that anticipated by more than a century the invention of the computer, Ada devised a method of using punchcards to calculate Bernoulli numbers, and thus became the mother of computer programming. It was in her honor that, in 1980, the U.S. Department of Defense named its computer language Ada.
In this critically acclaimed biography, author Benjamin Woolley portrays Ada Byron's life as the embodiment of the schism between the worlds of Romanticism and scientific rationalism. He describes how Ada's efforts to bridge these opposites with a poetical science was the driving force behind one of the most remarkable careers of the Victorian Age. A brilliant chronicle of an extraordinary life in math and science and an enthralling rumination on the death of Romanticism and the birth of the Machine Age, The Bride of Science offers thought-provoking insights into the seemingly irreconcilable opposition between art and science that continues to haunt us today.
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- Computability Theory (Chapman Hall/Crc Mathematics Series) by S. Barry Cooper on