The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter

More than just a biography of Ada Lovelace Byron, this is a narrative of the social setting of early 19th century England. In the span of under 4 decades of Ada's life, Charles Babbage had demonstrated his Difference Engine with a working model, created the design for his Analytical Engine, many scientists were performing experiments related to electricity and magnetism, and some were dabbling in their relationship to the... Read Full Review

We will forever wonder if Charles Babbage could have given the computer age a jump start of a century. His brilliant designs for intricate and complicated calculating machines included the never-built Analytical Engine, which would have had a memory and a processor like our electronic versions, and would have run on punched cards, programmable and flexible enough to vary its routine through the If-Then steps familiar to any... Read Full Review

Romance and Byron certainly reign supreme in this book. Science, however, is lacking. A very interesting account of Byron and his brief marriage fills the first quarter of the book. His daughter, Ada, is the subject of the other three-quarters. The book uses Ada as a biographical example of the ever-more-intense clash between Reason (science, industry, etc) and Romance (poetry, religion, arts, etc). Ada seems to be unable... Read Full Review

Who better than Ada Byron can represent the turn from Romanticism to Victorian age in England? Ada, the heiress of the great poet Lord Byron has not only lived in such transitory epoch, but Passion and Science were running in her very own blood. She was brought up by her mother, Lady Byron, and initiated by her to mathematical and rational studies, everything that would keep Ada as far as possible from the tenebrous, ... Read Full Review