num_pages: 302
description: In Jacquard's Web , James Essinger tells the story of some of the most brilliant inventors the world has ever known, in this fascinating account of how a hand-loom invented in Napoleonic France led to the development of the modern information age.Essinger, a master story-teller, describes how Joseph-Marie Jacquard's loom enabled the 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. Thesecards can very reasonably be described as the world's first computer programs. Indeed, Essinger shows through a series of remarkable and meticulously researched historical connections--connections never before investigated--that the Jacquard loom kick-started a process of scientific evolution whichwould lead directly to the development of the modern computer. The book examines a wealth of extraordinary links between the nineteenth-century world of weaving and today's computer for example, modern computer graphics displays are based on exactly the same principles as those employed inJacquard's special woven tableaux. Jacquard's Web also introduces some of the most colorful and interesting characters in the history of science and the modest but exceptionally dedicated Jacquard himself; the brilliant but temperamental Victorian polymath Charles Babbage, who dreamed ofa cogwheel computer operated using Jacquard cards; and the imaginative and perceptive Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's only legitimate daughter.Attractively illustrated and compellingly narrated, Jacquard's Web is an engaging and delightful volume. It is an impressive case of historical detective work, one that will leave the reader mesmerized.
language: English
title: Jacquard's Web: How a Hand-Loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age
titlecomplete: Jacquard's Web: How a Hand-Loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age
genres: Biography, Technology, Science, Nonfiction, History Of Science, Computers, History
ratings_count: 181
publisher: Oxford University Press