Charles & Ada The Computer's Most Passionate Partnership

by Essinger, James; Babbage, Lisa Noel

• ISBN13: 9780750990950
• ISBN10: 0750990953
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2019-08-22
• Publisher: The History Press

Summary

The partnership of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace was one that would change science forever. They were an unlikely pair – one the professor son of a banker, the other the only child of an acclaimed poet and a social-reforming mathematician – but perhaps that is why their work was so revolutionary.They were the pioneers of computer science, creating plans for what could have been the first computer. They each saw things the other did not: it may have been Charles who designed the machines, but it was Ada who could see their potential.But what were they like? And how did they work together? Using previously unpublished correspondence between them, Charles and Ada explores the relationship between two remarkable people who shared dreams far ahead of their time.

Author Biography

James Essinger is an established author of narrative non-fiction books focusing on STEM subjects and personalities. These include the acclaimed Ada's Algorithm: How Lord Byron's Daughter Launched the Digital Age Through the Poetry of Numbers, which was an AV Club Notable Release, and has been optioned for film by Monumental Pictures. Lisa Noel Babbage is the great granddaughter of Charles Babbage as well as an author, teacher, and philanthropist. She lives in Northeast Georgia.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Arthur’s Notes
Preface
1 Britain Transformed
2 Boyhood
3 Cambridge Days, and Ada is Born
4 Family Matters
5 The Epiphany that Changed Babbage’s and Ada’s Lives
6 1827: Babbage’s Year of Disaster
7 Ada Dreams of a Flying-Machine
8 The Solitary Widower
9 On The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures
10 Babbage and Ada Meet
11 The Remarkable Ada Byron
12 A Fresh Tragedy; the Analytical Engine; and Ada’s Marriage
13 Dabbling in Politics
14 A Stage Play that Held Up a Mirror to Babbage’s Heart
15 Ada the Fairy
16 Enchanted
17 Last Days
18 So Why Did Babbage and Ada Fail?
Bibliography
Index