
Ada Lovelace
computer programming pioneer
Ada Lovelace is known for being the author of the first computer program ~ a scientist ahead of her time. Married young and unhappily to a man 10 years her senior, Ada remained faithful to her mathematical studies even in domesticity, striking up chummy friendships with scientific luminaries like Michael Faraday and Andrew Crosse in the process.
Never downplaying her intellect {"That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal"}, Ada would be delighted to be the patron saint of women in STEM. Today, the visionary is honored with a programming language named for her. And, her own day ~ every October…the middle Tuesday.
computer programming | wrote the first program, to compute Bernoulli sequences
visionary thinking | proposals for Analytical Engines {computers}, including making music
an intellect that seems unusual | modern attempts to downplay or discredit her contributions, and attribute her work to Charles Babbage and other men
a knack for science-inspired metaphors | amusingly referred to Andrew Crosse's family as "the various heterogeneous atoms (organic and inorganic) of your chaotic mass"
1815 | her mother left her father Lord Byron when Ada was a month old; Ada's mother spent her life trying to counter any Byronic tendencies through education in mathematics and music
1833 | met Charles Babbage, the inventor who would become her friend + mentor
1842 | translated and annotated Italian mathematician Louis Menebrea's memoirs on the Analytical Engine for Babbage
from | to
society daughter | "Analyst (& Metaphysician)"
born on
December 10, 1815
born in
London, England
birth name
Augusta Ada Byron
nickname
"Enchantress of Numbers"
"Lady Fairy"
citizen of
The United Kingdom
daughter of
Annabella Milbanke Byron + George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron {yes, that Byron}
sister of
half-sister Allegra Byron
educated at | studied with
home | private tutors, including Mary Somerville
loved studying
mathematics
music
married to
William King, 1st Earl of Lovelace
mother of
2 sons + 1 daughter | Byron Noel, Ralph Gordon Noel, Anne Isabella Noel
in her spare time
at age 12, tried to design a flying machine ~ her plans, including an illustrated book titled Flyology, were cut short by her mother
played the harp
died on
November 27, 1852
~ uterine cancer ~
image credits
Margaret Sarah Carpenter | public domain
Alfred Edward Chalon | public domain
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letter to Charles Babbage | january 1841
"Imagination is the Discovering Faculty, pre-eminently. It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, the worlds of Science. It is that which feels & discovers what is, the real which we see not, which exists not for our senses."
letter to Charles Babbage | january 1841
"I do not believe that my father was (or ever could have been) such a Poet as I shall be an Analyst; (& Metaphysician); for with me the two go together indissolubly."
to Charles Babbage | unknown
"The Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves."
on Menabrea's paper, Sketch of the Analytical Eng?ine Invented by Charles Babbage | october 1842
"We leave it for the decision of each individual (after he has possessed himself of competent information as to the characteristics of each engine) to determine how far it ought to be matter of regret that such an accession has been made to the powers of human science."
on Menabrea's paper, Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage | october 1842
"I am quite thunder-struck at the power of the writing. It is especially unlike a woman's style surely; but neither can I compare it with any man's exactly."
to Charles Babbage {quoted in Hypatia's Heritage by Margaret Alic} | monday afternoon, 1843
"What would be to me terrible, would be mind & activity impeded by health."
quoted in Ada: Enchantress of Numbers | july 1843
"Your best and wisest refuge from all troubles is in your science."
to neighbor-scientist Andrew Crosse {quoted in The Lady’s Friend, vol 7} | 1844
"I have lived almost entirely secluded for some time. Those who are much in earnest and with single minds devoted to any great object in life, must find this occasionally inevitable."
to neighbor-scientist Andrew Crosse {quoted in The Lady’s Friend, vol 7} | 1844
"I must be at work again, I have been too idle lately. It never does for me to repose upon existence, or to have time for remembering myself & feelings. That is a fact."
quoted in Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers by Betty A. Toole | february 1845
"Certainly my troops must consist of numbers, or they can have no existence at all."
to Lady Byron {her mother} | october 1851
"If I had a little less brains, I should & would be a good Catholic, & cling to that certainty which I do long for. However I don't wish to be without my brains, tho' they doubtless interfere with a blind faith which would be very comfortable."
to her mother {quoted in Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers by Betty A. Toole} | 1852
curated with care by Meghan Miller Brawley {october 2014}
Miniature of Ada Byron
This miniature of Ada Byron, aged 4, was in a locket belonging to her father, the "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" poet, George Gordon, Lord Byron, who separated from her mother when Ada was a month old and never saw her again. Even at this young age, she was the center of her parents' conflict ~ her mathematical mother Annabella Milbanke Byron, whom Byron called his "Princess of Parallelograms" in their happy times, subjected Ada to rigorous studies designed to stifle any poetic impulses. As young as 5, she was required to study with governesses and tutors all day. From her correspondence and contemporary accounts, she was alternately lively and awkward as she grew up, practically playing out the conflict between her parents. Byron called Ada the "sole daughter of my house and heart" in his famous opening stanza to Canto III in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, but she was already much taken with math and mechanics, not poetry.
unknown artist | scanned from Byron and his World by Derek Parker | public domain
Ada Byron, aged seventeen (1832)
Ada Byron in 1832. Shortly after, in 1833, she would meet celebrated mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage, with whom she'd study and work for the rest of her short life. In her notes on a translation of a paper on Babbage's Analytical Engine, she famously predicted the abstract and artistic possibilities of this precursor to the modern computer. The first computer program is in her Note G, an algorithm she devised for calculating numbers in the Bernoulli sequence without previous human enumeration.
Lovelace-Byron Collection | scanned from The Calculating Passion of Ada Byron by Joan Baum | public domain
Babbage's Analytical Engine | Science Museum London
Babbage built part of this trial model of his Analytical Engine in 1871, just before his death. The machine was designed to evaluate mathematical formulae, and Ada Lovelace predicted it could be capable of advanced functions, including making music, in her famous Notes on Italian mathematician Menebrea's short paper on the device. The Notes were published in 1842.
Bruno Barral | CC BY-SA 2.5 | http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AnalyticalMachine_Babbage_London.jpg