Ada Lovelace And The Difference Engine

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, was the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Milbanke. But, Ada never knew the father who deserted his wife a month after her birth and who died when his daughter was nine years old.

As a child, Ada was often ill and suffered serious complications after a severe bout of measles. She was kept in isolation by a domineering and hypochondriac mother who attempted to allay all ‘immorality’ of inherited poetic tendencies by insisting her daughter was tutored in music and mathematics – subjects in which Ada was gifted, even going so far as to produce a design for a flying machine.

Charles Babbage

But, Ada’s talents really came to fruition when, at the age of seventeen, she met with the scientist, Charles Babbage, Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. Babbage had already begun work on the world’s very first mechanical computers. But, his machines were never constructed, for parliament had refused to continue sponsoring plans for the ‘Difference’ and then the ‘Analytical’ Engine. Babbage did find some sympathy abroad and was aided by the Italian mathematician, Louis Menebrea. And, when back in England again, Ada – his little Enchantress of Numbers - helped him to translate Menabrea’s notes.

From these Ada formed an algorithm: a code to enable the actual processing of the machines – had they been constructed during their inventor’s lifetime. As such, she is now viewed as being the first computer programmer. And, there is some evidence that Ada suggested the use of punch cards for the Analytical machine, realising its scope might reach further; even to the composition of music.

Lord Byron by Thomas Phillips

Ada married the 1^st Earl of Lovelace. The couple resided at Ockham Park in Surrey and had three children together, though Ada was not destined to live a long life. Suffering from uterine cancer, she died at the age of 37, perishing from an excess of medicinal blood-letting - the same age and same cause as Lord Byron before. She was then buried beside the famed father who, in life, she had never known.

But, today Ada’s achievements are recalled in what has been designated as Ada Lovelace Day. Finding Ada is an annual blogging event set up by the journalist Suw Charman-Anderson in an attempt to raise the profile of women working in the fields of science and technology; women whose work might otherwise be sidelined, just as Ada’s contributions once were. If you blog in related fields and wish to add your own contribution (videologging, podcasting and comic drawing are all allowed), then please do join in today’s web discussions.

I would like to end this post by sharing something I saw recently on the Datamancer website;