Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, born
Augusta Ada Byron and now commonly known as
Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician
and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles
Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose
computer, the Analytical Engine.
Her notes on the engine include what is recognised
as the first algorithm intended to be carried
out by a machine.
Because of this, she is often described as
the world's first computer programmer.
Lovelace was born 10 December 1815 as the
only child of the poet Lord Byron and his
wife Anne Isabella Byron.
All Byron's other children were born out of
wedlock to other women.
Byron separated from his wife a month after
Ada was born and left England forever four
months later, eventually dying of disease
in the Greek War of Independence when Ada
was eight years old.
Ada's mother remained bitter at Lord Byron
and promoted Ada's interest in mathematics
and logic in an effort to prevent her from
developing what she saw as the insanity seen
in her father, but Ada remained interested
in him despite this.
Ada described her approach as "poetical science"
and herself as an "Analyst".
As a young adult, her mathematical talents
led her to an ongoing working relationship
and friendship with fellow British mathematician
Charles Babbage, and in particular Babbage's
work on the Analytical Engine.
Between 1842 and 1843, she translated an article
by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea
on the engine, which she supplemented with
an elaborate set of notes of her own, simply
called Notes.
These notes contain what many consider to
be the first computer program—that is, an
algorithm designed to be carried out by a
machine.
Lovelace's notes are important in the early
history of computers.
She also developed a vision on the capability
of computers to go beyond mere calculating
or number-crunching while others, including
Babbage himself, focused only on those capabilities.
Her mind-set of "poetical science" led her
to ask basic questions about the Analytical
Engine examining how individuals and society
relate to technology as a collaborative tool.
Biography
Childhood
Ada Lovelace was born Augusta Ada Byron on
10 December 1815, the child of the poet George
Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, and Anne Isabella
"Annabella" Milbanke, Baroness Byron.
George Byron expected his baby to be a "glorious
boy" and was disappointed when his wife gave
birth to a girl.
Augusta was named after Byron's half-sister,
Augusta Leigh, and was called "Ada" by Byron
himself.
On 16 January 1816, Annabella, at George's
behest, left for her parents' home at Kirkby
Mallory taking one-month-old Ada with her.
Although English law at the time gave fathers
full custody of their children in cases of
separation, Byron made no attempt to claim
his parental rights but did request that his
sister keep him informed of Ada's welfare.
On 21 April, Byron signed the Deed of Separation,
although very reluctantly, and left England
for good a few days later.
Aside from an acrimonious separation, Annabella
continually throughout her life made allegations
about Byron's immoral behavior.
This set of events made Ada famous in Victorian
society.
Byron did not have a relationship with his
daughter, and never saw her again.
He died in 1824 when she was eight years old.
Her mother was the only significant parental
figure in her life.
Ada was not allowed to view any portrait of
her father until her twentieth birthday.
Her mother became Baroness Wentworth in her
own right in 1856.
Annabella did not have a close relationship
with the young Ada, and often left her in
the care of her own mother Judith, Hon.
Lady Milbanke, who doted on her grandchild.
However, due to societal attitudes of the
time—which favored the husband in any separation,
with the welfare of any child acting as mitigation—Annabella
had to present herself as a loving mother
to the rest of society.
This included writing anxious letters to Lady
Milbanke about Ada's welfare, with a cover
note saying to retain the letters in case
she had to use them to show maternal concern.
In one letter to Lady Milbanke, she referred
to Ada as "it": "I talk to it for your satisfaction,
not my own, and shall be very glad when you
have it under your own."
In her teenage years, several of her mother's
close friends watched Ada for any sign of
moral deviation.
Ada dubbed these observers the "Furies", and
later complained they exaggerated and invented
stories about her.
Ada was often ill, beginning in early childhood.
At the age of eight, she experienced headaches
that obscured her vision.
In June 1829, she was paralyzed after a bout
of measles.
She was subjected 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.
Despite being ill Ada developed her mathematical
and technological skills.
At age 12, this future "Lady Fairy", as Charles
Babbage affectionately called her, decided
she wanted to fly.
Ada went about the project methodically, thoughtfully,
with imagination and passion.
Her first step in February 1828, was to construct
wings.
She investigated different material and sizes.
She considered various materials for the wings;
paper, oilsilk, wires and feathers.
She examined the anatomy of birds to determine
the right proportion between the wings and
the body.
She decided to write a book Flyology illustrating,
with plates, some of her findings.
She decided what equipment she would need,
for example, a compass, to "cut across the
country by the most direct road", so that
she could surmount mountains, rivers and valleys.
Her final step was to integrate steam with
the "art of flying".
In early 1833, Ada had an affair with a tutor
and, after being caught, tried to elope with
him.
The tutor's relatives recognized her and contacted
her mother.
Annabella and her friends covered the incident
up to prevent a public scandal.
Ada never met her younger half-sister, Allegra,
daughter of Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont.
Allegra died in 1822 at the age of five.
Ada did have some contact with Elizabeth Medora
Leigh, the daughter of Byron's half-sister
Augusta Leigh, who purposely avoided Ada as
much as possible when introduced at Court.
Adult years
Lovelace developed a strong relationship with
her tutor Mary Somerville.
She had a strong respect and affection for
Somerville. and the two of them corresponded
for many years.
Other acquaintances included Andrew Crosse,
Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, Charles
Dickens and Michael Faraday.
By 1834, Ada was a regular at Court and started
attending various events.
She danced often and was able to charm many
people, and was described by most people as
being dainty.
However, John Hobhouse, Lord Byron's friend,
was the exception and he described her as
".a large, coarse-skinned young woman but
with something of my friend's features, particularly
the mouth."
This description followed their meeting on
24 February 1834 in which Ada made it clear
to Hobhouse that she did not like him, probably
due to the influence of her mother, which
led her to dislike all of her father's friends.
This first impression was not to last, and
they later became friends.
On 8 July 1835 she married William King, 8th
Baron King, becoming Baroness King.
Their residence was a large estate at Ockham
Park, in Ockham, Surrey, along with another
estate on Loch Torridon, and a home in London.
They spent their honeymoon at Worthy Manor
in Ashley Combe near Porlock Weir, Somerset.
The Manor had been built as a hunting lodge
in 1799 and was improved by King in preparation
for their honeymoon.
It later became their summer retreat and was
further improved during this time.
They had three children: Byron; Anne Isabella,
and Ralph Gordon.
Immediately after the birth of Annabella,
Lady King experienced "a tedious and suffering
illness, which took months to cure."
In 1838, her husband became Earl of Lovelace.
Thus, she was styled "The Right Honourable
the Countess of Lovelace" for most of her
married life.
In 1843-44, Ada's mother assigned William
Benjamin Carpenter to teach Ada's children,
and to act as a 'moral' instructor for Ada.
He quickly fell for her, and encouraged her
to express any frustrated affections, claiming
that his marriage meant he'd never act in
an "unbecoming" manner.
When it became clear that Carpenter was trying
to start an affair, Ada cut it off.
In 1841, Lovelace and Medora Leigh were told
by Ada's mother that her father was also Medora's
father.
On 27 February 1841, Ada wrote to her mother:
"I am not in the least 'astonished'.
In fact you merely 'confirm' what I have for
'years and years' felt scarcely a doubt about,
but should have considered it most improper
in me to hint to you that I in any way suspected."
She did not blame the incestuous relationship
on Byron, but instead blamed Augusta Leigh:
"I fear 'she' is 'more inherently' wicked
than 'he' ever was."
In the 1840s, Ada flirted with scandals: firstly
from a relaxed relationship with men who were
not her husband, which led to rumours of affairs—and
secondly, her love of gambling.
The gambling led to her forming a syndicate
with male friends, and an ambitious attempt
in 1851 to create a mathematical model for
successful large bets.
This went disastrously wrong, leaving her
thousands of pounds in debt to the syndicate,
forcing her to admit it all to her husband.
She had a shadowy relationship with Andrew
Crosse's son John from 1844 onwards.
John Crosse destroyed most of their correspondence
after her death as part of a legal agreement.
She bequeathed him the only heirlooms her
father had personally left to her.
During her final illness, she would panic
at the idea of the younger Crosse being kept
from visiting her.
Death
Ada Lovelace died at the age of 36 on 27 November
1852, from uterine cancer probably exacerbated
by bloodletting by her physicians.
The illness lasted several months, in which
time Annabella took command over whom Ada
saw, and excluded all of her friends and confidants.
Under her mother's influence, she had a religious
transformation and was coaxed into repenting
of her previous conduct and making Annabella
her executor.
She lost contact with her husband after she
confessed something to him on 30 August which
caused him to abandon her bedside.
What she told him is unknown.
She was buried, at her request, next to her
father at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene,
Hucknall, Nottingham.
Education
Throughout her illnesses, she continued her
education.
Her mother's obsession with rooting out any
of the insanity of which she accused Lord
Byron was one of the reasons that Ada was
taught mathematics from an early age.
She was privately schooled in mathematics
and science by William Frend, William King,
and Mary Somerville, noted researcher and
scientific author of the 19th century.
One of her later tutors was mathematician
and logician Augustus De Morgan.
From 1832, when she was seventeen, her remarkable
mathematical abilities began to emerge, and
her interest in mathematics dominated the
majority of her adult life.
In a letter to Lady Byron, De Morgan suggested
that her daughter's skill in mathematics could
lead her to become "an original mathematical
investigator, perhaps of first-rate eminence."
Lovelace often questioned basic assumptions
by integrating poetry and science.
While studying differential calculus, she
wrote to De Morgan:
I may remark that the curious transformations
many formulae can undergo, the unsuspected
and to a beginner apparently impossible identity
of forms exceedingly dissimilar at first sight,
is I think one of the chief difficulties in
the early part of mathematical studies.
I am often reminded of certain sprites and
fairies one reads of, who are at one's elbows
in one shape now, and the next minute in a
form most dissimilar...
Lovelace believed that intuition and imagination
were critical to effectively applying mathematical
and scientific concepts.
She valued metaphysics as much as mathematics,
viewing both as tools for exploring "the unseen
worlds around us".
Work
Throughout her life, Ada was strongly interested
in scientific developments and fads of the
day, including phrenology and mesmerism.
Even after her famous work with Babbage, Ada
continued to work on other projects.
In 1844, she commented to a friend Woronzow
Greig about her desire to create a mathematical
model for how the brain gives rise to thoughts
and nerves to feelings.
She never achieved this, however.
In part, her interest in the brain came from
a long-running preoccupation, inherited from
her mother, about her 'potential' madness.
As part of her research into this project,
she visited electrical engineer Andrew Crosse
in 1844 to learn how to carry out electrical
experiments.
In the same year, she wrote a review of a
paper by Baron Karl von Reichenbach, Researches
on Magnetism, but this was not published and
does not appear to have progressed past the
first draft.
In 1851, the year before her cancer struck,
she wrote to her mother mentioning "certain
productions" she was working on regarding
the relation of maths and music.
Lovelace first met Charles Babbage in June
1833, through their mutual friend Mary Somerville.
Later that month, Babbage invited Lovelace
to see the prototype for his Difference Engine.
She became fascinated with the machine and
used her relationship with Somerville to visit
Babbage as often as she could.
Babbage was impressed by Lovelace's intellect
and analytic skills.
He called her The Enchantress of Numbers.
In 1843 he wrote of her:
During a nine-month period in 1842–43, Ada
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.
Explaining the Analytical Engine's function
was a difficult task, as even other scientists
did not really grasp the concept and the British
establishment was uninterested in it.
Ada's notes even had to explain how the Engine
differed from the original Difference Engine.
The notes are longer than the memoir itself
and include, in complete detail, a method
for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers
with the Engine, which would have run correctly
had the Analytical Engine been built.
Based on this work, Lovelace is now widely
credited with being the first computer programmer
and her method is recognised as the world's
first computer program.
Her work was well received at the time; Michael
Faraday described himself as a fan of her
writing.
Lovelace and Babbage had a minor falling out
when the papers were published, when he tried
to leave his own statement as an unsigned
preface—which would imply that she had written
that also.
When Taylor's Scientific Memoirs ruled that
the statement should be signed, Babbage wrote
to Ada asking her to withdraw the paper.
This was the first that she knew he was leaving
it unsigned, and she wrote back refusing to
withdraw the paper.
Historian Benjamin Woolley theorised that,
"His actions suggested he had so enthusiastically
sought Ada's involvement, and so happily indulged
her ... because of her 'celebrated name'."
Their friendship recovered, and they continued
to correspond.
On 12 August 1851, when she was dying of cancer,
Ada wrote to him asking him to be her executor,
though this letter did not give him the necessary
legal authority.
Part of the terrace at Worthy Manor was known
as Philosopher's Walk, as it was there that
Ada and Babbage were reputed to have walked
while discussing mathematical principles.
First computer program
In 1842, Babbage was invited to give a seminar
at the University of Turin about his Analytical
Engine.
Luigi Menabrea, a young Italian engineer,
and future Prime Minister of Italy, wrote
up Babbage's lecture in French, and this transcript
was subsequently published in the Bibliothèque
universelle de Genève in October 1842.
Babbage's friend Charles Wheatstone commissioned
Ada to translate Menabrea's paper into English.
She then augmented the paper with notes, which
were added to the translation.
Ada spent the better part of a year doing
this, assisted with input from Babbage.
These notes, which are more extensive than
Menabrea's paper, were then published in Taylor's
Scientific Memoirs under the initialism AAL.
In 1953, more than a century after her death,
Ada's notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine
were republished.
The engine has now been recognized as an early
model for a computer and Ada's notes as a
description of a computer and software.
Her notes were labeled alphabetically from
A to G.
In note G, she describes an algorithm for
the Analytical Engine to compute Bernoulli
numbers.
It is considered the first algorithm ever
specifically tailored for implementation on
a computer, and Ada has often been cited as
the first computer programmer for this reason.
The engine was never completed, however, so
her code was never tested.
Conceptual leap
In her notes, Lovelace emphasized the difference
between the Analytical Engine and previous
calculating machines, particularly its ability
to be programmed to solve problems of any
complexity.
She realised the potential of the device extended
far beyond mere number crunching.
She wrote:
[The Analytical Engine] might act upon other
things besides number, were objects found
whose mutual fundamental relations could be
expressed by those of the abstract science
of operations, and which should be also susceptible
of adaptations to the action of the operating
notation and mechanism of the engine...
Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental
relations of pitched sounds in the science
of harmony and of musical composition were
susceptible of such expression and adaptations,
the engine might compose elaborate and scientific
pieces of music of any degree of complexity
or extent.
This analysis was a conceptual leap from previous
ideas about the capabilities of computing
devices, and foreshadowed the capabilities
and implications of the modern computer.
This insight is seen as significant by writers
such as Betty Toole and Benjamin Woolley,
as well as programmer John Graham-Cumming,
whose project Plan 28 has the aim of constructing
the first complete Analytical Engine.
Controversy over extent of contributions
Though Ada Lovelace is often referred to as
the first computer programmer, there is disagreement
over the extent of her contributions, and
whether she can accurately be called a programmer.
Allan G. Bromley, in the 1990 essay Difference
and Analytical Engines, wrote, "All but one
of the programs cited in her notes had been
prepared by Babbage from three to seven years
earlier.
The exception was prepared by Babbage for
her, although she did detect a 'bug' in it.
Not only is there no evidence that Ada ever
prepared a program for the Analytical Engine,
but her correspondence with Babbage shows
that she did not have the knowledge to do
so."
On the other hand, Eugene Eric Kim and Betty
Alexandra Toole wrote, "[Lovelace] was certainly
capable of writing the program herself given
the proper formula; this is clear from her
depth of understanding regarding the process
of programming and from her improvements on
Babbage's programming notation."
Curator and author Doron Swade, in his 2001
book The Difference Engine, wrote, "The first
algorithms or stepwise operations leading
to a solution—what we now recognize as a
'program', although the word was used neither
by her nor by Babbage—were certainly published
under her name.
But the work had been completed by Babbage
much earlier."
Kim and Toole dispute this claim: "Babbage
had written several small programs for the
Analytical Engine in his notebook in 1836
and 1837, but none of them approached the
complexity of the Bernoulli numbers program."
Historian Bruce Collier went further in his
1990 book The Little Engine That Could've,
calling Ada not only irrelevant, but delusional:
It would be only a slight exaggeration to
say that Babbage wrote the 'Notes' to Menabrea's
paper, but for reasons of his own encouraged
the illusion in the minds of Ada and the public
that they were authored by her.
It is no exaggeration to say that she was
a manic depressive with the most amazing delusions
about her own talents, and a rather shallow
understanding of both Charles Babbage and
the Analytical Engine.
Writer Benjamin Woolley said that while Ada's
mathematical abilities have been contested,
she can claim "some contribution": "Note A,
the first she wrote, and the one over which
Babbage had the least influence, contains
a sophisticated analysis of the idea and implications
of mechanical computation" and that this discussion
of the implications of Babbage's invention
was the most important aspect of her work.
According to Woolley, her notes were "detailed
and thorough [a]nd still... metaphysical,
meaningfully so."
They explained how the machine worked and
"[rose] above the technical minutiae of Babbage's
extraordinary invention to reveal its true
grandeur."
Babbage published the following on Ada's contribution,
in his Passages from the Life of a Philosopher:
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.
Eugene Eric Kim and Betty Alexandar Toole
elucidate Babbage's role in writing the first
computer program:
From this letter, two things are clear.
First, including a program that computed Bernoulli
numbers was Ada's idea.
Second, Babbage at the very least provided
the formulas for calculating Bernoulli numbers...
Letters between Babbage and Ada at the time
seem to indicate that Babbage's contributions
were limited to the mathematical formula and
that Ada created the program herself.
In popular culture
Lovelace has been portrayed in Romulus Linney's
1977 play Childe Byron, the 1990 steampunk
novel The Difference Engine by William Gibson
and Bruce Sterling, the 1997 film Conceiving
Ada, and in John Crowley's 2005 novel Lord
Byron's Novel: The Evening Land, where she
is featured as an unseen character whose personality
is forcefully depicted in her annotations
and anti-heroic efforts to archive her father's
lost novel.
In Tom Stoppard's 1993 play Arcadia, the precocious
teenage genius Thomasina Coverly comes to
understand chaos theory, and theorises the
second law of thermodynamics, before either
is officially recognised.
Commemoration
The computer language Ada, created on behalf
of the United States Department of Defense,
was named after Ada Lovelace.
The reference manual for the language was
approved on 10 December 1980, and the Department
of Defense Military Standard for the language,
MIL-STD-1815, was given the number of the
year of her birth.
Since 1998, the British Computer Society has
awarded a medal in her name and in 2008 initiated
an annual competition for women students of
computer science.
In the UK, the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium,
the annual conference for women undergraduates
is named after Ada Lovelace.
"Ada Lovelace Day" is an annual event celebrated
in mid-October whose goal is to "...raise
the profile of women in science, technology,
engineering and maths."
The Ada Initiative is a non-profit organization
dedicated to increasing the involvement of
women in the free culture and open source
movements.
On the 197th anniversary of her birth, Google
dedicated its Google Doodle to her.
The doodle shows Lovelace working on a formula
along with images that show the evolution
of the computer.
The Engineering in Computer Science and Telecommunications
College building in Zaragoza University is
called the Ada Byron Building.
The village computer centre in the village
of Porlock, near where Ada Lovelace lived,
is named after her.
There is a building in the small town of Kirkby-in-Ashfield,
Nottinghamshire named Ada Lovelace House.
One of the tunnel boring machines excavating
the tunnels for London's Crossrail project
is named Ada in commemoration of Ada Lovelace.
Titles and styles by which she was known
10 December 1815 – 8 July 1835: The Honorable
Ada Augusta Byron
8 July 1835 – 1838: The Right Honorable
The Lady King
1838 – 27 November 1852: The Right Honorable
The Countess of Lovelace
Ancestry
Publications
Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by
Charles Babbage, Esq. with notes by trans.
Ada Lovelace, in Scientific Memoirs, Vol 3.
See also
Great Lives aired on 17 September 2013 was
dedicated to the story of Ada Lovelace.
Women in computing
Ada Initiative
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
"Ada Lovelace: Founder of Scientific Computing".
Women in Science.
SDSC. 
"Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace".
Biographies of Women Mathematicians.
Agnes Scott College. 
"Papers of the Noel, Byron and Lovelace families".
UK: Archives hub. 
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Ada
Lovelace", MacTutor History of Mathematics
archive, University of St Andrews .
"Ada Lovelace & The Analytical Engine".
Babbage.
Computer History. 
"Ada & the Analytical Engine".
Educause. 
"Ada Lovelace, Countess of Controversy".
Tech TV vault.
G4 TV. 
Ada Lovelace.
"In Our Time".
Radio 4.
UK: The BBC. 6 March 2008. 
"Ada Lovelace".
Women in Science.
UK: L'Oreal. 
"Ada Lovelace's Notes and The Ladies Diary".
Yale. 
