The Bride of Science by Benjamin Woolley, Macmillan, £18.99, ISBN
0333724364
ADA, it was thought, was a prey to objectionable thoughts and needed
discipline. She was prescribed a course of trigonometry and sums to calm her
down sufficiently to withstand the shock of beholding a portrait of her
father—the dangerous, dissolute Lord Byron. When she was a month old her
mother had fled Byron and covered his likeness with a green curtain. Now 20 and
fortified by tuition, Ada gazed on the painting of Byron in Albanian
costume—with little reaction.
Ada is better known for her work with…
