LONDON DIARY
2002-03-25
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace
B. 12.10.1815 London / D. 11.27.1852 London
Uterine Cancer
2.13.02 - ST. JAMES SQUARE / New Britain. A useless suit stands smoking, moodily, self-importantly—ready to be rude but as yet without an excuse to be—outside number 12, former home of Ada Countess of Lovelace, "pioneer of computing." It's an open house—office space rentals.
The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis, but it has no power of anticipating any analytical revelations or truths. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with.
The whole corner building next door is To Let—signs left to dim for something dot.com, another husk. A more tasteful version of the see-through hulk out towards Heathrow, four glass stadium-length floors of boxes, empty desks and chairs, partitions laid all helter-skelter by the repo teams long since come to collect the terminals and keyboards. Not like pharmaceuticals, not a sure strong growth thing.
The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns, just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.
Quotation from "Observations on Mr. Babbage's Anayltic Engine"
(1843)