MARC Record from marc_columbia

LEADER: 03140mam a22003974a 4500
001 3144480
005 20221019232716.0
008 001205s2001 nyuaf b 001 0 eng
010 $a 00068643
020 $a0670910201 (alk. paper)
035 $a(OCoLC)ocm45558811
035 $9ATY1095CU
035 $a3144480
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dOCLCQ$dOrLoB-B
042 $apcc
043 $ae-uk---
050 00 $aQA75$b.S954 2001
082 00 $a681/.145$221
100 1 $aSwade, Doron.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/nr93027724
245 14 $aThe difference engine :$bCharles Babbage and the quest to build the first computer /$cDoron Swade.
250 $a1st American ed.
260 $aNew York :$bViking,$c2001.
300 $ax, 342 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates :$billustrations ;$c21 cm
336 $atext$btxt$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$bn$2rdamedia
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 321-331) and index.
520 1 $a"In 1821 an inventor and mathematician, Charles Babbage, was poring over a set of mathematical tables. Finding error after error Babbage exclaimed, "I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam." His frustration was not simply at the grindingly tedious labor of checking manually evaluated tables, but at their daunting unreliability. Science, engineering, construction, banking, and insurance depended on tables for calculation.
520 8 $aShips navigating by the stars relied on them to find their positions at sea.".
520 8 $a"Babbage launched himself on a grand venture to design and build mechanical calculating engines that would eliminate such errors. His bid to build infallible machines is a saga of ingenuity and will, which led beyond mechanized arithmetic into the entirely new realm of computing. Through Ada, Countess of Lovelace and daughter of Lord Byron, we gain tantalizing insights into how at least one Victorian glimpsed the promise of what was to come.
520 8 $aBabbage springs out of history like a jack-in-the-box: a gentleman philosopher, a tireless inventor, a vigorous socialite, and a mesmerizing raconteur. "Mr. Babbage is coming to dinner" was a coup for any hostess.".
520 8 $a"Drawing on previously unused archival material, The Difference Engine is a tale of both Babbage's nineteenth-century quest to build a calculating engine and its twentieth-century sequel. For in 1991, Babbage's vision was finally realized, at least in part, by the completion at the Science Museum in London of the first full-sized Babbage engine, finished in time for the 200th anniversary of Babbage's birth.
520 8 $aThe two quests are mutually illuminating and are recounted here by the then Curator of Computing, Doron Swade - one of the main protagonists of the successful resumption of Babbage's extraordinary work."--BOOK JACKET.
650 0 $aCalculators$zGreat Britain$xHistory$y19th century.
600 10 $aBabbage, Charles,$d1791-1871.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50031102
700 1 $aBabbage, Charles,$d1791-1871.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50031102
852 00 $bmat$hQA75$i.S954 2001