Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

Charles Babbage seems like a pretty exciting guy. 19th century scientist, mathematician, inventor, and bitter enemy of street musicians.
I was drawn to this autobiography after reading the "comic book" (it's so much more than a comic book) "The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage." It's very satisfying to make the connections between Babbage's own account of himself and the beautifully imagined drawings of Sydney Padua, the comic illustrator.

Charles Babbage (and his friend Ada Lovelace) did a lot of work on the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine, devices that we would recognize as early computers. Only, they were about 100 years before their time, so everything they worked on was mechanical, not electrical, and mostly show more just existed in theory. Still, pretty awesome.

But there's more to Babbage than just that. He's fascinatingly all over the place. One chapter he is DEMOLISHING the Trinity doctrine (he thinks the people who formalized it were either having a huge joke, or else drunk), the next chapter he's communing with the spirit of a block of cheese. (Literally, these are adjoining chapters.)
He has himself lowered into an Italian volcano and times how long he can poke around before the next eruption. He is kind of in love with a dancing automaton and dresses her with all the care of a young girl with her first Barbie. Etc., etc., etc.

Now, honestly, there were dull bits, and I did skim some of the machine and math talk. But overall I enjoyed this pretty well. I'd like to meet this charming madman. He lived vigorously. show less

A decent book, but nothing too out of the ordinary. I was not wowed or surprised by any of its contents.

Nevertheless, not bad.

Delightful chapters interspersed with some gnatterings about local body politics.