Ada Lovelace (1815-1852)
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Ada Lovelace was born to the brilliant poet Lord Byron (George Gordon) and the highly intelligent Lady Byron (Anne Isabella Milbanke).
Ada was raised as a sickly child by her maternal grandmother and servants since her father abandoned the family when she was only 1 month old and her mother seemed to have had little or no affection for her and so had very little contact with her. |
However, her mother believed in women receiving quality education and decided that Ada should be spared her father's eccentricities by studying more logical subjects like math and science, rather than literature or poetry.
Timeline
In 1833, when Ada Lovelace was 17 years old, she met Charles Babbage at a dinner party and became interested in the Difference Engine.
With the blue prints of it and by observing the Jacquard loom steam machine in operation, Ada gained an understanding of how mechanical devices worked.
While continuing her independent pursuit of mathematical knowledge, Charles and Ada forged a relationship of an academic nature and bonded over a shared interest in the
Difference Engine. Babbage moved from the Difference to a higher level computer concept, called the
Analytical Engine that was capable of more sophisticated calculations. |
In 1842, Ada became aware of work done by Luigi Federico Menabrea called Sketch of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine written in French.
She got hold of this work and translated it into English. In addition, she added her own notes publishing it under the initials "A.A.L," thereby concealing her identity since women were not accepted as intellectual equals.
Ada's translation & notes are now seen as the 1st description of a computer & its software.
She wrote the Bernoulli algorithm which is a set of instructions for using the Engine for calculating Bernoulli numbers that became known as the 1st computer program. |
Ada Lovelace conceptualized that the Analytical Engine goes beyond being just a calculator and grasped that anything that could be converted to numbers could be manipulated by computer algorithms (general purpose computers).
It was not until 1952 when Lord Bowen published a text that cited her accomplishments, that she and her contributions were recognized as prior it was subsumed into Charles Babbage.
In 1979, more than 100 years after her death, the Department of Defense honored her by naming a programming language ADA.
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Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).
Wall Posts
A new, vast, and powerful language is developed for the future use of analysis, in which to wield its truth so that these may become of more speedy and accurate practical application for the purposes of mankind than the means hitherto in our possession have rendered possible.
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I never am really satisfied that I understand anything; because, understand it well as I may, my comprehension can only be an infinitesimal fraction of all I want to understand about the many connections and relations which occurs to me, how the matter in question was first thought of or arrived at, etc. |
Summary
Ada Lovelace has made many achievements and contributions to the field of Computing from writing the first computer program to pioneering the concept that computers are more than just calculating devices and can be used to do just about anything once given the right instructions (algorithms).
Although she achieved much in her time, she was very under represented due to the high level of gender inequality that was present in the 1800's and so her work on the Analytical Engine was overshadowed by that of Charles Babbage. It is just now that we see her work actually being recognized and rewarded.
However, women in the field of Computing are still very much unrecognized and as such Ada Lovelace remains as one of Computing's Underrepresented Pioneers, an Under Dog.
Although she achieved much in her time, she was very under represented due to the high level of gender inequality that was present in the 1800's and so her work on the Analytical Engine was overshadowed by that of Charles Babbage. It is just now that we see her work actually being recognized and rewarded.
However, women in the field of Computing are still very much unrecognized and as such Ada Lovelace remains as one of Computing's Underrepresented Pioneers, an Under Dog.
Glossary
- Analytical:
- Machine that uses punched cards to "read" instructions and data for solving mathematical problems.
- Bernoulli:
- It is a sequence of rational numbers based heavily on the number theory
- Difference:
- Machine that computes values of quadratic functions.
- Jacquard loom:
- Machine that has punch cards laced together into a continuous sequence ("chain of cards") that issues instructions (machine code).
Sources
Done by: Shanice Bryan