Scienza e immaginazione. Charles Dickens tra Charles Babbage e Ada Lovelace

Carla Petrocelli

Abstract


Charles Dickens, friend, reader, and correspondent of both Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, had a close friendship with them, as evidenced by the numerous letters we have. Although it is commonly believed that there are no references to science-related topics in the English writer’s immense literary corpus, this contribution highlights that Dickens was influenced by the two pioneers of programmable computing, proving himself in his writings to be a keen observer of what would become the foundations of modern computer science, from the representation of information through codes to the schematization of a problem through algorithms.


Keywords


Dickens; Babbage; Lovelace; science; literature

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References


Archivi

- BL Add. ms. - British Library Additional Manuscripts

- MA - The Morgan Library & Museum

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23756/sp.v14i1.1727

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Science & Philosophy - Journal of Epistemology, Science and Philosophy. ISSN 2282-7757; eISSN  2282-7765.