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 human mind, the great railway system emerged with the steam powered engine making distances shorter and travel less of a hardship. The debates surrounding progress of science versus keeping the tranquility of nature undisturbed are well represented in this narrative. The story covers a lot of the scandals of incest associated with Byron and his separation from his wife - this separation dominated Ada's life and had far-reaching effects on her children as well. Ada's mother Annabella - Lady Byron comes across as a domineering, influential, cruel and manipulative woman. Speculation, reconstruction, historical evidence all play their parts in this most fascinating story of the "Enchantress of Numbers" as Ada came to be known. This well written biography talks about Ada's early interest in flying and other "impossible" projects, absorption with mesmerism, phrenology, and above all, her quest for tying the cold mathematical world (of her mother) to the hot, passionate, poetic world of her father. Due to the unique legacy of her parents, Ada sees her purpose in life as one of somehow reconciling the two disparate worlds. Despite her mother's best efforts to keep Byronic passions out of Ada's personality, those are what Ada naturally leans towards, as is evident from her failed elopement in her teens, then several "episodes" with men at various points in her life, and her obsession with gambling, her (medically prescribed) consumption of laudanum / opium, and subsequent addiction. Her professional relationship with several imminent scientists including Charles Babbage, her writing of "notes" on scientific subjects, study of mathematics in her adulthood, her desperation to immerse herself in science in order to avoid her father's legacy - in spite of all her efforts Ada proves to be a Byron more than a Milbanke (her mother's maiden name). The human story is more in evidence than the story of a scientific or mathematical mind. So if you are looking for just facts and details related to Ada as a scientist or "first computer programmer" this book will not be enough.

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 programmer. It never got funded because others were not able to envision just how singularly useful the gadget could have been, but Babbage had one friend and interpreter who knew the potential of his creation, and who handed the world a prescient account of what this computer might be expected to do.Her name was Ada Lovelace, and although her ties to Babbage and his machine give her a connection to our century, she was a sensation in her own times by right of birth. As told in the exciting biography _The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter_ (McGraw-Hill) by Benjamin Woolley, everyone knew about Ada because she was the one child of Lord and Lady Byron. Their stormy marriage had endured only eleven months when Ada was born, and a month later, Lady Byron left him; he left for the continent, never to see his daughter again. Lady Byron was motivated ever after to vindicate herself against Byron, and she raised Ada to be a soldier in this cause; she tried to make sure that the child was raised on mathematics to suppress imagination and keep any elements of the Byronic temperament from breaking out.Raising Ada was thus a science experiment, one that didn't work. She remained curious about her father, and as she got older, she was convinced that she had genius from him and was impelled to express it. She couldn't do it through mathematics, as despite all the intense training, she wasn't a mathematician. But she was introduced to Babbage, and in 1840, set out to translate a paper he had presented on his Analytical Engine in Italy. She didn't just translate, but with Babbage's help, she made her own notes on the meaning of the computer and what it could and could not do, amazingly prescient for her time.Woolley has not only given a fine biography of a limited woman who happened to be at the center of events that presaged our future. He has given capsule biographies of Lord and Lady Byron, Babbage, and many others who were connected with her. Furthermore, he has given historic notes on phases that touched Ada's life, such as phrenology and mesmerism, which are extremely interesting and valuable, and his argument that the Analytical Engine could not catch on because the Victorian world was not ready for the computer is fascinating. Even feminists and cyberhistorians who want to make Ada something she wasn't (and there are many of these) should be thrilled with this portrait of what she really was.

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 to cope with this conflict within herself and the author details several periods of mental illness. Though the biography of Ada Lovelace is intriguing, the main focus is on the society in which she lived. A fascinating history lesson, and an eye-opening look into a hitherto neglected woman. That said, there are quiet a few mispellings (not unusual for a first edition). If you are interested in the period, Byron, or love biographies - this is a good choice. If your bent runs to the specific scientific contributions or more widely to a reflection on the conflict between Romance and Reason, you might try another work such as the Calculating Passion of Ada Byron or Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers (though neither of those includes the actual program she wrote) and Victorian Minds/a Study of Intellectuals in Crisis and Ideologies in Transition or In Pursuit of a Scientific Culture : Science, Art, and Society in the Victorian Age.

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, irrational, dangerous and very passionate style of life of her father. This life style is what had led to the separation after only one year of merriage, between Lord and Lady Byron accompained by scandals grief and resentment. Lady Byron's reaction to it was to try to repress Ada's paternal romantic vein with science. This will bring Ada to be in contact with the best scientists of the moment and even to be remembered as the first computer programmer, but won't preclude her from being a real Byron...