Product 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; it proved an outstanding success. These cards can very reasonably be described as the world's first computer programmes. 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: to give just one 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #100819 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
An entertaining and illuminating exercise in making connections between apparently disparate scientific endeavours. TLS

Review
Jacquard's web is a special book that explains more than the connections between loom and computer: it presents a fascinating history of talented and creative people developing and inventing the tools of progress. (Chris Arney, Mathematical Reviews )

New Scientist, October 23, 2004
...entertaining tale... a welcome book.

Customer Reviews

a Victorian computer revolution.....
No one could read the first chapter of this book and not finish it. In fact, I've just spent the past two days devouring it from start to finish. It's an entertaining fact-filled romp through the entire history of something that dominates our lives, and that we always think of as entirely modern... and yet the history this book traces goes back nearly 5,000 years.

What I liked best about it was the teasingly thought-provoking idea the author raises: that our computer age could have started over 150 years ago in Victorian England...

According to Jacquard's Web, the Victorian scientist Charles Babbage spent a lifetime building and refining metal calculating cogwheel machines or 'engines' as Babbage called them. The working portions of the Engines he built worked perfectly. As Babbage's friend and colleague Ada Lovelace once said, it was the first time in history that 'wheelwork' had been taught 'to think'. But funding ran out and Babbage died never seeing his calculating engines come to fruition.

What I found so incredibly thought-provoking in this book was that in London in 1991 a perfectly working Difference Engine was built from Charles Babbage's plans and drawings. I have seen the Difference Engine in action myself (as the white-gloved engineer cranks the handle, the stacked columns of cogwheels spiral and coalesce beautifully as they perform their mathematical calculations) but I hadn't realised the significance at the time.

According to the author, James Essinger, if Babbage had found the funding to complete his Engines, computers could have come into widespread use in the nineteenth century. Now if that isn't a thought-provoking idea I don't know what is!

Jacquard's Web
This book is a brilliant example of what a winning formula genuine enthusiasm - together with an ability to convey that enthusiasm on the printed page, and a thorough grasp of the subject - can be. It is evident from the first page that James Essinger has done his homework. The book bears all the hallmarks of extensive, painstaking and well-directed research. Too often with biographies we feel that the author is simply going through the motions for the sake of pickng up another fat advance, but nothng could be further from the truth here. And in his choice of subject Mr Essinger has come up with a second winning combination: namely, a very important subject who is relatively little known in this country or, it is probably safe to assume, elsewhere. The subject - what was the effectively the dawn of computerised manufacturing - is a hugely important and gripping one. Here we have a story of genius and determination overcoming numerous obstacles to emerge triumphant. It is the stuff of Hollywood, and in this writer's hands its potential to inform and entertain is realised to the full.

From weaving to computing
Jacquard's Web is a most enjoyable insight into the history of the computer.The book brings to life the struggles that faced the inventors who dreamt hand-looms could one day evolve into the personal computer.

One of the best things about his book is that it is very easy to read. As well as charting the development of the machine that I am writing this review on at this very moment, you are introduced to (through the author James Essinger) the people who worked so hard to make the computer the amazing machine it is today.

This book will appeal to everyone, regardless of whether you have a direct interest in the subject or not. I read the book having no knowledge of the subject at all and I found it fascinating. Anyone with a passion for beautifully written books will be entertained from cover to cover. A truly enjoyable book.