Buch, Englisch, 314 Seiten
How a hand-loom led to the birth of the information age
Buch, Englisch, 314 Seiten
ISBN: 978-0-19-280577-5
Verlag: Oxford University Press
fascinating look at the previously uninvestigated story of a how a loom invented 200 years ago led to the development of the computer age
* Full of interesting and colourful characters: the modest but dedicated Joseph-Marie Jacquard, the brilliant but temperamental polymath Charles Babbage, and the imaginative and perceptive Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter
* Contains compelling new material that has never before been published for a general readership
* Beautifully packaged and illustrated for readers of general non-fiction such as Tulipomania, Longitude, and Galileo's Daughter
DESCRIPTION:
Jacquard's Web is the story of some of the most ingenious inventors the world has ever known, a fascinating account of how a hand-loom invented in Napoleonic France led to the development of the modern information age. James Essinger, a master story-teller, shows through a series of remarkable and meticulously researched historical connections (spanning two centuries and never investigated before) that the Jacquard loom kick-started a process of scientific evolution which would lead directly to the development of the modern computer.
The invention of Jacquard's loom in 1804 enabled the master silk-weavers of Lyons to weave fabrics 25 times faster than had previously been possible. The device used punched cards, which stored instructions for weaving whatever pattern or design was required. The looms were so successful that they are still used today to create garment care tags and air bags, while the punched cards were adapted for use in the world's first computer programs.
In this engaging and delightful book, James Essinger reveals a plethora of extraordinary links between the nineteenth-century world of weaving and today's computer age: for example, modern computer graphics displays are based on exactly the same principles as those employed in Jacquard's special woven tableaux. Jacquard's Web also introduces some of the most colourful and interesting characters in the history of science and technology: the modest but exceptionally dedicated Jacquard himself, the brilliant but temperamental Victorian polymath Charles Babbage, who dreamt of a cogwheel computer operated using Jacquard cards, and the imaginative and perceptive Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's only legitimate daughter.
Zielgruppe
General readers, with or without a science background, professional scientists and science writers, historians of science and technology.COMPETITION: The Cogwheel Brain: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer by Doran Swade. Published 08/2001 £9.99. Publisher: Abacus. Comments: A book by a popular author on a related theme: but Swade does not cover Jacquard and his world in depth, and does include the up-to-date research underlying Jacquard's Web.
