Sarah T. Weston

Entwining histories of literature, art, and mathematics, “The Cypher & The Abyss” is a cultural history of zeroes and ones from the late seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, considering the shifting forms these “quantities” adopted between Leibniz’s invention of binary in 1679, and the first computer, Babbage’s Analytical Engine in the 1830s. Modern computing relies on two states: 0/1, on/off, yes/no. But the concepts of zero and one, as they evolved across the eighteenth century, were infinitely more complex. This project uncovers a rich, neglected history of zeroes and ones in the era directly before computing, explicating the sudden reemergence of base-2 systems—punch-cards, braille, telegraphs—in the Romantic period, ca. 1780-1840. The book traces a pre-history of the “bit,” examining developments in mathematics alongside literary and artistic abysses, cyphers, fractions, and heroes. Exploring the infinitely empty and infinitesimally minute, “The Cypher & The Abyss” argues that the Romantic era was a uniquely crucial time where writers, artists, mathematicians, and scientists alike were all stretching and re-defining the boundaries of nothing and something. Written for both academic and lay audiences, this book seeks the origin story of the invisible infrastructure that lies beneath every moment people spend in front of a screen, today.