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Jacquard's Web: How a Hand-Loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age

by James Essinger

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From punched silk patterns to digital information

$38.84 USD
$40.89 USD $38.84 USD
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Paperback New English

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AlbakiReads Editorial

From punched silk patterns to digital information

James Essinger traces a technological lineage from Joseph Jacquard’s 1804 loom to modern computing. The book centers on the loom’s use of punched cards to store weaving instructions, then follows the historical connections between textile production, automated processes, and the development of computers. Along the way, it foregrounds the people and innovations that carried this idea forward, placing an industrial tool from nineteenth-century France within a longer history of information technology. Illustrations support the account, which also extends its historical thread to the World Wide Web and artificial intelligence as presented in the book.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in the history of computing and information technology
  • Popular science and technology-history readers
  • Students and researchers exploring links between industrial innovation and computers

Themes

Jacquard loomPunched cardsHistory of computingTextile technologyArtificial intelligence

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

Circuits from silk? Today's technophiles probably have no idea how much today's computer technology owes to the invention of one ingenuous textile manufacturer in nineteenth-century France. Here, master storyteller James Essinger shows through a series of remarkable and meticulously researched historical connections how the Jacquard loom kick-started a process of scientific evolution which would lead directly to the development of the modern computer.
Jacquard's 1804 invention, a loom which used punch cards with stored instructions for weaving different patterns and designs, enabled the master silk-weavers of Lyons to weave fabrics 25 times faster than the competition. Here, Essinger reveals the plethora of extraordinary links between that innovation in weaving and today's computer age, introducing us to the intriguing and colorful people who paved the way. The book concludes by bringing the story completely up-to-date with the latest developments in the World Wide Web and the fascinating phenomenon of artificial intelligence.
Attractively illustrated and compellingly narrated, Jacquard's Web presents an eye-opening and scarcely known history that will prove fascinating to readers of popular science, especially those interested in the history of science, technology, and computing, as well as professional scientists, historians, and students.
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