James Essinger. (2014). Ada's Algorithm: How Lord Byron's Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age. Melville House.

James Essinger. 2014. Ada's Algorithm: How Lord Byron's Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age. Melville House.

James Essinger, Ada's Algorithm: How Lord Byron's Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age. Melville House, 2014.

James Essinger. Ada's Algorithm: How Lord Byron's Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age. Melville House, 2014.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{034FA6DE-29D8-4F07-8EF3-61BB2465DD03}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{034FA6DE-29D8-4F07-8EF3-61BB2465DD03}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/034/FA6/DE/{034FA6DE-29D8-4F07-8EF3-61BB2465DD03}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/034/FA6/DE/{034FA6DE-29D8-4F07-8EF3-61BB2465DD03}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781612194097
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 243019
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B00JTA9YI6
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 243019
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781612194097
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 243019
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: James Essinger

title

Ada's Algorithm

dateAdded

2014-11-14T14:48:00-05:00

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=1690143
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

Adas Algorithm How Lord Byrons Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age

crossRefId

1690143

subtitle

How Lord Byron's Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age

id

034fa6de-29d8-4f07-8ef3-61bb2465dd03

starRating

3.6

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: AdasAlgorithm_9781612194097_1690143
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 3769924
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781612194097
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 243019
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 0
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 10/14/2014
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/ada-s-algorithm?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: AdasAlgorithm_9781612194097_1690143
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781612194097
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 243019
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 10/14/2014
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/ada-s-algorithm?.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: Charles Dickens
2. • value: Computing
3. • value: Biography
4. • value: Computer Science
5. • value: Computers
6. • value: steve jobs
7. • value: autobiographies
8. • value: Lord Byron
9. • value: computer
10. • value: European History
11. • value: World History
12. • value: Autobiography
13. • value: Memoirs
14. • value: women
15. • value: Programming
16. • value: feminism
17. • value: biographies
18. • value: Tech
19. • value: History
20. • value: Technology
21. • value: Walter Isaacson
22. • value: biographies and memoirs
23. • value: ada lovelace
24. • value: alan turing
25. • value: history of computers
26. • value: history books
27. • value: historical biographies
28. • value: history of england
29. • value: books for women
30. • value: gifts for history buffs
31. • value: inspirational books for women
32. • value: biographies of famous people
33. • value: history gifts
34. • value: computer books

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Essinger, James
   • bioText: JAMES ESSINGER is a writer with a particular interest in the history of ideas that have had a practical impact on the modern world. His previous book, Jacquard's Web: How a Hand-Loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age (2004), was chosen as one of the top 5 popular science books of the year by the Economist.
     
     
   • name: James Essinger

publishDate

2014-10-14T00:00:00-04:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

Ada's Algorithm

fullDescription

“[Ada Lovelace], like Steve Jobs, stands at the intersection of arts and technology."—Walter Isaacson, author of The Innovators
Over 150 years after her death, a widely-used scientific computer program was named “Ada,” after Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate daughter of the eighteenth century’s version of a rock star, Lord Byron. Why?
Because, after computer pioneers such as Alan Turing began to rediscover her, it slowly became apparent that she had been a key but overlooked figure in the invention of the computer.
In Ada Lovelace, James Essinger makes the case that the computer age could have started two centuries ago if Lovelace’s contemporaries had recognized her research and fully grasped its implications.
It’s a remarkable tale, starting with the outrageous behavior of her father, which made Ada instantly famous upon birth. Ada would go on to overcome numerous obstacles to obtain a level of education typically forbidden to women of her day. She would eventually join forces with Charles Babbage, generally credited with inventing the computer, although as Essinger makes clear, Babbage couldn’t have done it without Lovelace. Indeed, Lovelace wrote what is today considered the world’s first computer program—despite opposition that the principles of science were “beyond the strength of a woman’s physical power of application.”
Based on ten years of research and filled with fascinating characters and observations of the period, not to mention numerous illustrations, Essinger tells Ada’s fascinating story in unprecedented detail to absorbing and inspiring effect.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: New York Times Book Review
   • content: Praise for Ada's Algorithm
     
     "[An] engrossing biography."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Wall Street Journal
   • content: "A tantalizing topic... The story of a society proceeding irrevocably but ambivalently into the modern age, enthralled by advances in science and technology, adapting to new social mores, and yet still beholden to many antiquated traditions."
3. • premium: False
   • source: American Scientist
   • content: "Essinger is a terrific storyteller, and he knows a great story when he sees it. Ada's Algorithm is a riveting read."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Chicago Tribune
   • content: "Irresistible ... If more people could have understood Babbage's machine the way Lovelace did -- indeed, if they had not all but ignored her paper, perhaps because the author was a woman -- computing might have had a far earlier start."
5. • premium: False
   • source: Boston Globe
   • content: "A revealing firsthand look into Ada's life and her relationship with Babbage, relying heavily on their journal entries and letters to each other... One of the most innovative minds of the 19th century."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Slate
   • content: "A fine new Lovelace biography... We need her as a symbol...of all the women who have contributed to the progress of science and technology, and of all the women who might have contributed if given the chance."
7. • premium: False
   • source: io9
   • content: "A window on the life of one of the world's first celebrity scientists."
8. • premium: False
   • source: Bust
   • content: "An absorbing account of a woman who was far ahead of her time."
9. • premium: False
   • source: Bitch Magazine, Gift Guide for Science Nerds
   • content: "The biography contains just the kind of moments of triumph I like to read about: Ada overcoming obstacles to get an education and make genius contributions to science."
10. • premium: False
    • source: Book Riot, Liberty Hardy (RiverRun Bookstore) picks 2014's Must-Read Books from Indie Presses
    • content: "The title says it all. Badass tech ladies rule."
11. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      August 11, 2014
      Behind every great man, there’s a great woman; no other adage more aptly describes the relationship between Charles Babbage, the man credited with thinking up the concept of the programmable computer, and mathematician Ada Lovelace, whose contributions, according to Essinger (Jacquard’s Web) in this absorbing biography, proved indispensable to Babbage’s invention. The Analytical Engine was a series of cogwheels, gear-shafts, camshafts, and power transmission rods controlled by a punch-card system based on the Jacquard loom. Lovelace, the only legitimate child of English poet Lord Byron, wrote extensive notes about the machine, including an algorithm to compute a long sequence of Bernoulli numbers, which some observers now consider to be the world’s first computer program. Essinger’s tome is undergirded by academic research, but it is the author’s prose, both graceful and confident, that will draw in a general readership. Readers are treated to an intimate portrait of Lovelace’s short but significant life—she died at age 36 from uterine cancer—along with an abbreviated history of 19th-century high-society London. A quick denouement and preface add contemporary context and further Essinger’s argument that Lady Lovelace “had seen the computer age clearly ahead... was never allowed to act on what she saw.” Agent: Diane Banks, Diane Banks Associates, U.K.

12. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      October 1, 2014
      The story of Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), the brilliant mathematician and the daughter of the poet Lord Byron, who likely wrote the first computer program in the early 1840s. Due to her gender, however, her research was overlooked, and another two centuries passed before computers became a reality. Despite the fact that Ada was Lord Byron's only legitimate daughter, her mother deemed him unfit to raise her and left him when Ada was just 1 month old. Her father's reputation made Ada famous by association, and throughout her life, this recognition connected her with some of the era's most interesting and accomplished people, including the mathematician Charles Babbage. As a child, Ada was fascinated by mathematics and demonstrated an "imaginative approach to science." Through sheer force of will, she managed to obtain an education rarely available to women in the 19th century and was therefore able to recognize the profound potential in Babbage's lifelong obsession, a machine he called the "Analytical Engine," designed to make calculations. Babbage considered his invention to be purely mathematical, but Ada realized that the possibilities were much grander-that the machine could be capable of "weav[ing] algebraical patterns," a sophisticated idea that did not yet exist at the time. In her writings, she clearly laid out these early concepts of computer science, but because she was female, she was essentially ignored. Essinger (Spellbound: The Surprising Origins and Astonishing Secrets of English Spelling, 2007, etc.) presents Ada's story with great enthusiasm and rich detail, painting her life as one that was rich with opportunity and access but stifled by sexism. Ada continues to inspire, and by using her own voice via letters and research, the author brings her to life for a new generation of intrepid female innovators. A robust, engaging and exciting biography.

      COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

popularity

377

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/034fa6de-29d8-4f07-8ef3-61bb2465dd03/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

034fa6de-29d8-4f07-8ef3-61bb2465dd03

starRating

3.6

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{034FA6DE-29D8-4F07-8EF3-61BB2465DD03}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{034FA6DE-29D8-4F07-8EF3-61BB2465DD03}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/034/FA6/DE/{034FA6DE-29D8-4F07-8EF3-61BB2465DD03}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/034/FA6/DE/{034FA6DE-29D8-4F07-8EF3-61BB2465DD03}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Biography & Autobiography
2. • value: Computer Technology
3. • value: History
4. • value: Nonfiction

publishDateText

10/14/2014

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9781612194080

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

"[Ada Lovelace], like Steve Jobs, stands at the intersection of arts and technology."—Walter Isaacson, author of The Innovators
Over 150 years after her death, a widely-used scientific computer program was named "Ada," after Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate daughter of the eighteenth century's version of a rock star, Lord Byron. Why?
Because, after computer pioneers such as Alan Turing began to rediscover her, it slowly became apparent that she had been a key but overlooked figure in the invention of the computer.
In Ada Lovelace, James Essinger makes the case that the computer age could have started two centuries ago if Lovelace's contemporaries had recognized her research and fully grasped its implications.
It's a remarkable tale, starting with the outrageous behavior of her father, which made Ada instantly famous upon birth. Ada would go on to overcome numerous obstacles to obtain a level of education typically forbidden to women of her...

sortTitle

Adas Algorithm How Lord Byrons Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age

crossRefId

1690143

subtitle

How Lord Byron's Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age

publisher

Melville House

bisacCodes

1. • code: BIO022000
   • description: Biography & Autobiography / Women
2. • code: COM080000
   • description: Computers / History
3. • code: HIS015000
   • description: HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / General