Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) was the daughter of Lord Byron, a poet, and Anna Isabella Milbanke, a mathematician. Her parents separated when she was young, and her mother insisted on a logic-focused education, rejecting Byron’s “mad” love of poetry. But Ada remained fascinated with her father and considered mathematics “poetical science.” Via her friendship with inventor Charles Babbage, she became involved in “programming” his Analytical Engine, a precursor to the computer, thus becoming the world’s first computer programmer.
Mathematics
Absolutely One Thing
Sometimes, as a treat, Mom takes Charlie and Lola to the store and says they may choose one thing. With Lola bending everyday numbers to her will, the math goes down easy.
Mice Mischief: Math Facts in Action
Socrates and the Three Pigs
A wolf’s attempt to figure out in which of five houses he is most likely to find one of three little pigs introduces such mathematical concepts as combinatorial analysis, permutations, and probabilities.
Count Up: 2
Five Down: 2
Ibn Al-Haytham: First Scientist
Ibn al-Haytham (“Alhazen” in Library of Congress cataloging) was born in Basra in 965. A Muslim who studied the works of Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, and Ptolemy, he developed an approach to science using experimentation and deduction and made significant observations and discoveries, particularly in the field of optics. Translations of his books influenced medieval European scientists and mathematicians from Bacon to Fermat to Kepler. Steffens notes that al-Haytham’s discovery of the cameraobscura may have changed Western art as well. Steffens has organized what is known of his subject’s life and work into a coherent narrative. He is quick to acknowledge gaps, but backs up inferences logically. Like the history of mathematics, the history of science is incomplete without an acknowledgment of early scholars in the Middle East. This clearly written introduction to al-Haytham, his society, and his contributions does that. The book concludes with a time line, source notes, a bibliography, and a list of Web sites.
The Librarian Who Measured The Earth
Describes the life and work of Eratosthenes, the Greek geographer and astronomer who accurately measured the circumference of the Earth.
Ones and Twos
This concept book explores numeracy, sorting, and pairing. Each brightly illustrated page invites children to identify familiar objects ranging from kites to socks, from one nest to the two birds sitting in it. Ones and Twos gives little toddlers and their caregivers much to discuss and to enjoy together, and it introduces an exciting new creative team.
Anno’s Hat Tricks
Three children, Tom, Hannah, and Shadowchild, who represents the reader, are made to guess, using the concept of binary logic, the color of the hats on their heads.