Augusta Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace (December 10, 1815 London, England – November 27, 1852 Marylebone, London, England),[1] born Augusta Ada Byron, is mainly known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She is today appreciated as the "first programmer" since she was writing programs—that is, manipulating symbols according to rules—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built. She also foresaw the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on these capabilities.[2]
Biography
Lovelace, born December 10, 1815, was the only child of the poet Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella.[3] She was named after Byron's half-sister, Augusta Leigh, and was called "Ada" by Byron himself.[4] On January 16, 1816, Annabella left Byron, taking one-month-old Ada with her. Although English law gave fathers full custody of their children in cases of separation, Byron made no attempt to claim his parental rights.[5] On April 21, Byron signed the Deed of Separation and left England for good a few days later.
Lovelace never met her younger half-sister, Allegra Byron, daughter of Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont, who died at the age of five in 1822. Lovelace did have some contact with Elizabeth Medora Leigh, the daughter of Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh. Lovelace and Medora were told by Ada's mother that Byron was Medora's father.
Lovelace was often ill starting in her early childhood. At eight she experienced head aches that obscured her vision. In June 1829, she was paralyzed after a bout of the measles. Lady Byron subjected the girl to continuous bed rest for nearly a year, which may have extended her period of disability. By 1831 she was able to walk with crutches. Throughout her illnesses, Lovelace continued her education.[6]
Lady Byron was also highly interested in mathematics, which dominated her life, even after marriage. Her obsession with rooting out any of the insanity of which she accused Lord Byron was one of the reasons why Annabella taught Lovelace mathematics at an early age. Lovelace was privately home schooled in mathematics and science by William Frend, William King and Mary Somervillecitation needed. One of her later tutors was Augustus De Morgan.
An active member of London society, she was a member of the Bluestockings in her youth.
In 1835 she married William King, 8th Baron King, later 1st Earl of Lovelace. They had three children; Byron born 12 May 1836, Annabella (Lady Anne Blunt) born 22 September 1837 and Ralph Gordon born 2 July 1839. The family lived at Ockham Park, at Ockham, Surrey. Her full name and title for most of her married life was The Right Honourable Augusta Ada, Countess of Lovelace. She is widely known in modern times simply as Ada Lovelace, or by her maiden name, Ada Byron.
Some attribute to Lovelace a reputation for drinking, gambling and scandal, but it has been questioned whether any good evidence exists to support this or whether in fact "she led rather a dull life in comparison to other figures of her day".[7]
She knew Mary Somerville, noted researcher and scientific author of the 19th century, who introduced her in turn to Charles Babbage on June 5, 1833. Other acquaintances were Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday.
During a nine-month period in 1842–1843, Lovelace translated Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea's memoir on Babbage's newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine. With the article, she appended a set of notes [8]. The notes are longer than the memoir itself and include (Section G) in complete detail a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, recognized by historians as the world's first computer program. Biographers debate the extent of her original contributions, with some holding that the programs were written by Babbage himself. Babbage wrote the following on the subject, in his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1846)[9]:
| “ |
I then suggested that she add some notes to Menabrea's memoir, an idea which was immediately adopted. We discussed together the various illustrations that might be introduced: I suggested several but the selection was entirely her own. So also was the algebraic working out of the different problems, except, indeed, that relating to the numbers of Bernoulli, which I had offered to do to save Lady Lovelace the trouble. This she sent back to me for an amendment, having detected a grave mistake which I had made in the process. |
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Lovelace's prose also acknowledged some possibilities of the machine which Babbage never published, such as speculating that "the Engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent."[10]
Interaction with Charles Babbage
Lovelace met and corresponded with Charles Babbage on many occasions, including socially and in relation to Babbage's Difference Engine and Analytical Engine. Their relationship was not of a romantic nature.
Lovelace was one of the few people who fully understood Babbage's ideas and created a program for the Analytical Engine. Had the Analytical Engine ever actually been built, her program would have been able to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. Based on this work, Lovelace is now widely credited with being the first computer programmer.[11]
Babbage was impressed by Lovelace's intellect and writing skills. He called her "The Enchantress of Numbers". In 1843 he wrote of her:
Forget this world and all its troubles and if
possible its multitudinous Charlatans - every thing
in short but the Enchantress of Numbers.[12]
The level of impact of Lovelace on Babbage's engines is the subject of debate. The debate is difficult to resolve due to Charles Babbage's tendency not to acknowledge (either verbally or in writing) the influence of other people in his work.
Death
Ada Lovelace died at the age of 36 due to uterine cancer and bloodletting by her physicians.[13] She left two sons and a daughter, Lady Anne Blunt, famous in her own right as a traveller in the Middle East and a breeder of Arabian horses, co-founder of the Crabbet Arabian Stud.
She was buried next to the father she never knew at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottingham. Over one hundred years after her death, in 1953, Lovelace's notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine were republished after being forgotten. The engine has now been recognized as an early model for a computer and Lovelace's notes as a description of a computer and software.[14]
Influence
The computer language Ada, created by the U.S. Defense Department, was named after Lovelace. The reference manual for the language was approved on December 10, 1980, The Department of Defense Military Standard for the language, "MIL-STD-1815" was given the number of the year of her birth. In addition Lovelace's image can be seen on the Microsoft product authenticity hologram stickers.citation needed Since 1998, the British Computer Society has awarded a medal in her name[15] and in 2008 initiated an annual competition for women students of computer science.[16]
In popular media, Lovelace has been portrayed in the movie Conceiving Ada and the novel The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.
See also
References
- ^ GRO Register of Deaths: DEC 1852 1a * MARYLEBONE - Augusta Ada Lovelace
- ^ J. Fuegi and J. Francis, "Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes'." Annals of the History of Computing 25 #4 (Oct-Dec 2003): 19, 25. Digital Object Identifier
- ^ Stein, Ada, pp. 14
- ^ Stein, Ada pp. 17
- ^ Stein, Ada, pp. 16
- ^ Stein, Ada, pp. 27–30
- ^ Professor John Fuegi commenting on his review of Lovelace's correspondence: BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time - Ada Lovelace - streaming audio
- ^ Menabrea, Luigi Federico; Ada Lovelace (1843). "Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage". Scientific Memoirs 3. With notes upon the Memoir by the Translator
- ^ (from an excerpt found in Perspectives on the Computer Revolution (1970), edited by Zenon Pylyshyn)
- ^ J. Fuegi, and J. Francis. "Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes'." Annals of the History of Computing 25 #4 (Oct-Dec 2003): quote 16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2003.1253887 Digital Object Identifier
- ^ J. Fuegi and J. Francis, "Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes'." Annals of the History of Computing 25 #4 (Oct-Dec 2003): 16-26. Digital Object Identifier
- ^ Toole, Betty (1998). "Acknowledgments", The Enchantress of Numbers. Critical Connection. ISBN 0912647183.
- ^ Joan Baum,The Calculating Passion of Ada Byron, Archon Books, 1986, ISBN 0208021191 p.99-100
- ^ J. Fuegi and J. Francis, "Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes'." Annals of the History of Computing 25 #4 (Oct-Dec 2003): 16-26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2003.1253887 Digital Object Identifier
- ^ Lovelace Lecture & Medal : BCS Accessed March 2, 2008
- ^ Undergraduate Lovelace Colloquium, BCSWomen Accessed March 6, 2008
- Kim, Eugene and Toole, Betty Alexandra T, Ada and the First Computer, Scientific American, May, 1999
- Menabrea, Luigi Federico; Ada Lovelace (1843). "Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage". Scientific Memoirs 3. With notes upon the Memoir by the Translator
- Toole, Betty Alexandra Toole Ed.D, Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers, A Selection from the Letters of Ada Lovelace, and her Description of the First Computer (1992)
- Toole, Betty Alexandra Toole Ed.D., Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers, Prophet of the Computer Age, 1998
- Woolley, Benjamin (February 2002). The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter.
- Stein, Dorothy (1985). Ada: A Life and a Legacy, MIT Press Series in the History of Computing. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. ISBN 026219242X.
External links
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