The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua

Book of the Week: 21 June 2015

 

This is the first time that a Book of the Week may not be borrowed (at least not for a week) although everyone is welcome to read it in the Library. Years 7 and 8 will be researching famous mathematicians in the Library this week and this book should prove very useful.

The cover says it is the (mostly true) story of the first computer. This is because it is a mix of fascinating historical facts, mathematics and comic strip storytelling. Here is the description from Sydney Padua’s website – available here:

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. Complete with historical curiosities, extensive footnotes 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.

Whether you enjoy a good graphic novel, or are interested in maths and computing, this original book is a fun read.