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The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage

The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer

Part of Pantheon Graphic Library

Author Sydney Padua
Ebook
Knopf | Pantheon
On sale Apr 21, 2015 | 320 Pages | 9780307908285
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A debut graphic biography that transforms one of the most compelling scientific collaborations into a hilarious series of adventures.

Meet Victorian London’s most dynamic duo: Charles Babbage, the unrealized inventor of the computer, and his accomplice, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the peculiar protoprogrammer and daughter of Lord Byron. When Lovelace translated a description of Babbage’s plans for an enormous mechanical calculating machine in 1842, she added annotations three times longer than the original work. Her footnotes contained the first appearance of the general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. Sadly, Lovelace died of cancer a decade after publishing the paper, and Babbage never built any of his machines.

But do not despair! The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage presents a rollicking alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine and then use it to build runaway economic models, battle the scourge of spelling errors, explore the wilder realms of mathematics, and, of course, fight crime—for the sake of both London and science. Complete with extensive footnotes that rival those penned by Lovelace herself, historical curiosities, and never-before-seen diagrams of Babbage’s mechanical, steam-powered computer, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is wonderfully whimsical, utterly unusual, and, above all, entirely irresistible.

With black-and-white illustrations throughout.
© Charlotte Knee
SYDNEY PADUA is a graphic artist and animator. Her visual effects work includes both hand-drawn and computer-generated and appears in such films as The Iron Giant, Clash of the Titans, and John Carter. The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage has been featured on the BBC's Techlab, and in The Economist, The Times,and Wired UK. She is a Canadian living in London. View titles by Sydney Padua

About

A debut graphic biography that transforms one of the most compelling scientific collaborations into a hilarious series of adventures.

Meet Victorian London’s most dynamic duo: Charles Babbage, the unrealized inventor of the computer, and his accomplice, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the peculiar protoprogrammer and daughter of Lord Byron. When Lovelace translated a description of Babbage’s plans for an enormous mechanical calculating machine in 1842, she added annotations three times longer than the original work. Her footnotes contained the first appearance of the general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. Sadly, Lovelace died of cancer a decade after publishing the paper, and Babbage never built any of his machines.

But do not despair! The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage presents a rollicking alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine and then use it to build runaway economic models, battle the scourge of spelling errors, explore the wilder realms of mathematics, and, of course, fight crime—for the sake of both London and science. Complete with extensive footnotes that rival those penned by Lovelace herself, historical curiosities, and never-before-seen diagrams of Babbage’s mechanical, steam-powered computer, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is wonderfully whimsical, utterly unusual, and, above all, entirely irresistible.

With black-and-white illustrations throughout.

Author

© Charlotte Knee
SYDNEY PADUA is a graphic artist and animator. Her visual effects work includes both hand-drawn and computer-generated and appears in such films as The Iron Giant, Clash of the Titans, and John Carter. The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage has been featured on the BBC's Techlab, and in The Economist, The Times,and Wired UK. She is a Canadian living in London. View titles by Sydney Padua

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