I feel like I’ve finally gotten to know Ada Lovelace

January 19, 2016 5:06 AM

Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace - by Stephen Wolfram; a good read, even if you're generally familiar with the story of Lovelace, Babbage, and the Difference Engine.
posted by Wolfdog (13 comments total)

Read this a while back: it’s a genuinely excellent deep dive into the whole question of exactly what contribution Ada Lovelace made to Babbage’s projects.

For those of you who find the whole endless Stephen Wolfram self-aggrandisement tiresome you can read it confident in the knowledge that for once he makes hardly any reference to his own vast intellect. Obviously it’s impossible for him to get through an entire article without mentioning it at least once but he’s remarkably restrained by comparison with his usual standards.
posted by pharm at 5:32 AM on January 19, 2016 [18 favorites]

Thanks, Wolfdog!
posted by carter at 7:36 AM on January 19, 2016

This seems like a good place to plug Sydney Padua's The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. Not really a history, not really a graphic novel, but an incredibly creative mishmash of history, fiction, artwork, computer science, sociology, English Literature, the industrial revolution, and the nature of Knighthood. I got a copy for Christmas and it was one of those where I cracked open the book when the package was first opened and got in trouble over the rest of Christmas Day for being distracted from the main event by trying to read the book.
posted by hearthpig at 7:48 AM on January 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

Great read. My cat is named Ada, after Ada Lovelace, and I always enjoy learning more about her.
posted by tickingclock at 8:05 AM on January 19, 2016

TIL Stephen Wolfram Blog. Thanks.
posted by Splunge at 8:52 AM on January 19, 2016

That's an interesting deep dive on the two of them, and I learned things I did not previously know. Thanks!
posted by rmd1023 at 9:27 AM on January 19, 2016

Yeah, seconding that this is way less self-aggrandizing than Wolfram usually manages, and a really engaging breakdown of the story. Good stuff.
posted by brennen at 9:34 AM on January 19, 2016

Thanks for this. Sad to think what she might have accomplished if she'd lived a normal lifespan.
posted by octothorpe at 10:20 AM on January 19, 2016

Another vote for Sydney Padua's Lovelace & Babbage book which I acquired when it first came out, after voraciously consuming the irregularly-published webcomic. I'm still not certain if Padua's "pocket universe" truly captured the essence of the historical characters, but most of me feels that they SHOULD have been like this...
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:25 AM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

.

We can do that for people who passed 164 years ago, right?
posted by brambleboy at 4:28 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I once met Adm. Grace Hopper and learned quite a bit from her talk on programming. But now I really wish we had known more at the time about Ada Lovelace. My alma mater has its own engineering school now, and I hope they teach about Ada's ideas and work enmeshed with the mechanical engineering needed to build Babbage's Engines.
posted by Dreidl at 1:15 AM on January 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

3rding The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. I started thumbing through it absentmindedly in the bookshop when I was killing some time; 40 minutes later I was still standing there completely engrossed and it had to come home with me.
posted by Gordafarin at 2:03 AM on January 20, 2016

ooo! further to Adm Grace Hopper:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8
posted by hearthpig at 8:01 AM on January 20, 2016