by Dr. Betty Alexandra Toole
Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace, was one of the most picturesque characters
in computer history. Augusta Ada Byron was born December 10, 1815, the
daughter of the illustrious poet Lord Byron. Five weeks after Ada was
born, Lady Byron asked for a separation from Lord Byron, and was awarded
sole custody of Ada, whom she brought up to be a mathematician and scientist.
Lady Byron was terrified that Ada might end up being a poet like her father.
Despite Lady Byron's programming, Ada did not sublimate her poetical inclinations.
She hoped to be "an analyst and a metaphysician." In her 30s
she wrote her mother, "if you can't give me poetry, can't you give
me 'poetical science?'" Her understanding of mathematics was laced
with imagination, and described in metaphors.
At the age of 17 Ada was introduced to Mary Somerville, a remarkable
woman who translated LaPlace's works into English, and whose texts were
used at Cambridge. Though Mrs. Somerville encouraged Ada in her mathematical
studies, she also attempted to put mathematics and technology into an
appropriate human context.
It was at a dinner party at Mrs. Somerville's that Ada heard, in November
1834, Babbage's ideas for a new calculating engine, the Analytical Engine.
He conjectured, "What if a calculating engine could not only foresee
but could act on that foresight?" Ada was touched by the "universality
of his ideas." Hardly anyone else was.
Babbage worked on plans for this new engine and reported on the developments
at a seminar in Turin, Italy, in the autumn of 1841. An Italian, Menabrea,
wrote a summary of what Babbage described and published an article in
French about the development. Ada, in 1843, married to the Earl of Lovelace
and the mother of three children under the age of eight, translated Menabrea's
article. When she showed Babbage her translation, he suggested that she
add her own notes, which turned out to be three times the length of the
original article.
Letters between Babbage and Ada flew back and forth filled with fact
and fantasy. In her article, published in 1843, Lady Lovelace's prescient
comments included her predictions that such a machine might be used to
compose complex music and to produce graphics, and would be used for both
practical and scientific use. She was correct.
When inspired, Ada could be very focused and a mathematical taskmaster.
Ada suggested to Babbage writing a plan for how the engine might calculate
Bernoulli numbers. This plan is now regarded as the first "computer
program." A software language developed by the U.S. Department of
Defense was named "Ada" in her honor in 1979.
After she wrote the description of Babbage's Analytical Engine her life
was plagued with illnesses, and her social life, in addition to Charles
Babbage, included Sir David Brewster (the originator of the kaleidoscope),
Charles Wheatstone, Charles Dickens, and Michael Faraday. Her interests
ranged from music to horses to calculating machines. She has been used
as a character in Gibson and Sterling's The Difference Engine and shown
writing letters to Babbage in the series "The Machine that Changed
the World," and I have gathered her letters and writings in Ada,
The Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron's
Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer. Though her life was
short (like her father, she died at 36), Ada anticipated by more than
a century most of what we think is brand-new computing.
For more information on Ada Byron, refer to Ada, The Enchantress
of Numbers, written by Betty Alexandra Toole, Ed.D., and published
by Strawberry Press.
Related Links
http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/love.htm
http://www.well.com/user/adatool
