The Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.
FIELD NOTES — Dr. Eleanor Hartley LOCATION: The Observatory of the Blazing World, Quarter of Reason Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, published The Blazing World in 1666 — the same year as the Great Fire of London, the same decade that the Royal Society was founded (and which she became the first woman to attend, in May 1667, after the exclusively male membership debated whether she should be allowed through the door). Samuel Pepys called her "a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman," and also read everything she wrote. The Blazing World is considered the first science fiction novel by a woman: a story of a woman who discovers a portal at the North Pole to a parallel world inhabited by bear-men and bird-men and worm-men, each species serving a scientific role. Mistaken for a goddess, she becomes Empress. In the Cité, the Blazing World is a physical space. The Observatory is a tower — not a defensive tower, an observational one — whose telescopes point not only at the sky...
From the lore of Cité des Dames.