Picturing Lovelace, Babbage, and the Analytical Engine: a cartoonist in mathematical biography

Abstract

The story of how Charles Babbage, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, polymath, and tinkerer, almost invented the computer in the 1830s has long been an opening parable in computer science textbooks. The murkier but irresistible subplot that he was assisted by so dramatic a figure as the estranged daughter of Lord Byron has taken this cul-de-sac of history into the realm of myth. Babbage, Lovelace, and the unrealised calculating engines fuel an industry of steampunk fantasies, one of which was my graphic novel, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, so kindly honoured by the BSHM with the Neumann Prize in 2015.