Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the Fir

£16.99

When Ada translated her friend Babbage’s plans for the ‘Difference Engine,’ her lengthy footnotes contained the first appearance of the general computing theory – 100 years before an actual computer was built. Sadly, Lovelace died of cancer a few years after publishing the paper, and Babbage never built any of his machines. But now Sydney Padua gives us an alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the ‘Difference Engine’, and then use it to do battle with the American banking system, the publishing industry, their own fears that their project will lose funding, and a villainous street musician who will force the two friends to re-evaluate their priorities – ‘for the sake of both London and science.’

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Description

‘So impossibly funny, clever, demented, charming and altogether wonderful that I was a convert within three pages. Buy it for everyone you know, regardless of what you think they like. Brilliant stuff’ Lucy Mangan, Stylist Books of the Year

‘An eye-opener… The more I think about this, the higher I esteem it’ – Nicholas Lezard, Guardian Books of the Year

*Winner of the British Book Design and Production Award for Graphic Novels*
*Winner of the Neumann Prize in the History of Mathematics*
*Nominated for the 2016 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album and Best Writer/Artist*

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.

Additional information

Weight 0.53 kg
Dimensions 23.3 × 16.8 × 2.4 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

315

Language

English

Edition

Graphic ed

Dewey

741.5 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K

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