Ada Byron Lovelace is the first programmer. The keen mind of Ada Lovelace
Here's a selection of facts about Ada Lovelace, the first female programmer.
The name of this woman gained fame only 100 years after her death. Nevertheless, Ada Lovelace today continues to remain in the shadow of her male colleagues: there is no mention of her in school textbooks, modern authors do not pay due attention to her personality, being content with the meager data of someone's diaries and correspondence. We tried to collect the most significant facts of her biography.
Ada Lovelace, or Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (Augusta Ada King Byron, Countess of Lovelace) is the only legitimate daughter of the world famous English romantic poet - George Byron. Due to a series of tragic circumstances (one of which was the divorce from Ada's mother, Anna Byron (née Milbank)), in 1816 Lord Byron was forced to leave England forever. Ada did not have to see her father again. In addition to a few poems, lines dedicated to Ada can be found in the 3rd part of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
Most of all, Ada's mother feared that her daughter would inherit her father's restless disposition and passion for poetry. Despite all the efforts of her mother, Ada adopted her father's eccentricity and craving for poetry, but mathematics became her main passion. The teachers were the well-known Scottish mathematician and logician Augustus de Morgan and Mary Somerville, the author of the translation of the "Treatise on Celestial Mechanics".
At 17, Ada met Charles Babbage, the creator of the first digital computing machine... Despite the 24 years age difference, Babbage becomes for Ada not just a teacher and colleague, but also a close friend who supports her in all her endeavors.
In October 1842, an article by the Italian engineer Luigi Manabrea was published on Charles Babbage's analytical engine. The scholar asked Countess Lovelace to translate the article into English. Ada not only translated the text, but also supplemented it with her comments, increasing the original volume of work by 3 times.
In the comments, Ada presented three of the world's first computing programs that she had compiled for Babbage's machine:
1.program for solving two linear algebraic equations with two unknowns; when analyzing this program, the concept of "working cells" (working variables) was first introduced, and the idea of a sequential change in their content was voiced;
2. the second program was compiled to calculate the values of the trigonometric function with multiple repetitions of a given sequence of computational operations; for this program, Ada introduced the concept of "loop", one of the fundamental constructs of structured programming;
3. Ada used recurrent nested loops in the third program designed to calculate Bernoulli digits.
In the comments to the work, Ada expressed her guess that computational operations can be applied not only to numbers, but also to other objects.
She was married to William King and had three children. She led a secular life, was friends with Michael Faraday, Charles Dickens and other famous personalities.
Her recordings were reissued in the work of B. I. Bowden " Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines "in 1953, which sparked a surge of interest in the name Ada Lovelace.
She died at the age of 36 from cancer. Buried in the Byron family crypt, next to her father.
In 1979, the US Department of Defense developed a unified programming language for embedded systems. The language was named "Ada", in honor of Ada Lovelace.
One of the dates of the celebration of the day of the programmer falls on December 10 - the birthday of Ada Lovelace.
Automatic Babbage Machine
Literature for acquaintance with the works and biography of Ada Lovelace:
Moore, Doris Langley-Levy "Countess of Lovelace: Byron's Legitimate Daughter";
-Wade, Mary Dodson "Ada Byron Lovelace: the Lady and the Computer." 1994. Grades 7-9;
-Toole, Betty A. and Ada King Lovelace "Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: Prophet of the Computer Age". 1998;
-Woolley, Benjamin, "The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason and Byron's Daughter." 2000.
Ada Lovelace - Countess, the only legitimate daughter of the poet George Byron, the first female programmer. WITH early years began to show interest in the exact sciences, including mathematics. Ada was the first lady to figure out how Babbage's logarithmic computer worked. Moreover, I was carried away by the idea of its development and improvement so much that I myself came up with various options for problems.
Name of one of smartest women her era became known only decades after her death. Until now, she remains in the shadow of her male colleagues. In most specialized textbooks, there is not a single word about it. Meanwhile, the contribution of Ada Lovelace, née Byron, to the development of programming can rightfully be considered enormous.
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Learn about a few fun facts from the life of this amazing woman, whose lively mind was ahead of its time, striving for amazing discoveries.
Leonardo da Vinci in a skirt
More than anything, Ada's mother worried that her daughter would inherit her father's passion for writing and grow up to be just as eccentric and irascible. Therefore, from an early age, she did not welcome the girl's hobby for reading prose and poetry, in every possible way drawing her attention to the exact sciences. In particular, the mathematician Augustus de Morgan was invited by Mrs. Byron to teach her daughter. As a result, at the age of 13, Ada already had several blueprints for aircraft.
Fateful meeting
It is known that Ada was familiar with such prominent personalities of her time as the prose writer Charles Dickens, the experimental physicist Michael Faraday, David Brewster (it was this man who invented the kaleidoscope). However, there was a meeting in her life that largely determined her life path... While still a young unmarried girl, she met the famous professor of mathematics, Charles Babbage. Several years earlier, he had invented his logarithmic machine, which had the ability to perform calculations with an accuracy of the twentieth decimal place. It is this machine that will later be recognized as the first computer in the world.
Family is not a hindrance
At the age of 19, the first programmer, Ada Lovelace, tied the knot with Lord Lovelace. Whether it was love or it was guided by an accurate calculation and pragmatism can only be guessed at. However, the fact that this marriage turned out to be very successful for her in all respects is a fact. The husband did not particularly interfere with his wife in her hobbies and, on the contrary, helped her financially and did not limit her time.
Even three weather children could not extinguish the flame of passion for science that raged inside Ada. Moreover, marriage, which seemed to have swallowed up a woman with worries, she was able to turn for the good of the work of her whole life. There she found an excellent source of funding in the form of the wealthy Lovelace family treasury.
First software
The reason to call Ada Lovelace the world's first programmer comes from her work, which consists of translation into English article describing Babbage's invention.
However, this was not just a translation. She supplemented the text with detailed comments, increasing its volume by more than three times. They, in particular, dealt with the development of a plan of operations for the analytical engine. This was the first programming! Her "operations", according to the creator herself, endowed the calculating machine with an amazing ability to weave algebraic formulas, like the Jacquard loom, which creates leaves, flowers, patterns from yarn.
The ability to predict the future
Nature generously endowed Ada not only with beauty and intelligence, but also with perspicacity. Another passion of the Countess was music. She once boldly assumed that the time would come when the computing machine would become so perfect that it could create amazing pieces of music. Well, today we are in a position to assess the accuracy of her predictions.
We will teach you how to weave websites: profession "".
Born on December 10, 1815 Ada Lovelace, which created a sample of the first computer program in history.
Not a word about father
In 1975, the US Department of Defense decided to start developing a universal programming language. When the question arose of how to name the new project, the developers presented the head of the department with a historical excursion, having familiarized himself with which he without hesitation approved the name "Hell".
This name was a tribute to a woman whose contribution to world science was only about 50 pages. But these fifty pages turned out to be a brilliant foresight of the future.
December 10, 1815 in London, in the family poet George Byron and his wife Anna Isabella a girl was born, whom the parents named Augusta Adoy.
Ada Lovelace. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Augusta Ada was the only legitimate daughter of the great poet, but Byron saw her only once, when the girl was a month old. The daughter was born when the parents' relationship had already come to an end. On April 21, 1816, Byron signed an official divorce and left England for good.
That is why neither the mother, nor the maternal grandparents ever called the girl Augusta - after all, this name was given to her by her father in honor of his sister. Moreover, relatives removed all of Byron's books from the family library, so that nothing would remind Augusta Ada of his father.
Mathematics as a family hobby
After the birth of her daughter, Anna Isabella handed her over to her parents, leaving for a long health cruise.
There is conflicting information about the relationship between Ada and her mother, but it is absolutely certain that Anna Isabella's passion for mathematics was transmitted to Ada. At one time, Byron, who was in love, called his wife “the queen of parallelograms”.If in other countries of the world in the first half of the 19th century, women would have reacted to such a hobby with surprise, turning into condemnation, then in England, the leader of world progress of that era, this was treated quite calmly.
Mother in every possible way contributed to the interest of her daughter, inviting for her training Scottish mathematician Augustus de Morgan, who used to be the teacher of Anna Isabella herself. Ada's other teachers were Mary Somerville b, translated into English "Treatise on Celestial Mechanics" French mathematician and astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace.
At the age of 17, Ada first left for the world and was introduced to the king and queen. But she was much more impressed by the meeting with Charles Babbage, professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge.
Charles Babbage, professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Mr. Babbage and his car
Babbage by that time had already been developing a calculating machine for ten years that could perform calculations with an accuracy of the twentieth decimal place. This machine, now known as Babbage's Big Difference Engine, contained the principles on which modern computers operate. That is why some call Babbage's creation the world's first computer.
A copy of the Difference Engine at the Science Museum in London. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Joe D
The task that Babbage took on was extremely difficult for its time. After ten years of work, the authorities gave up on the project and stopped funding it. But Babbage, as a true scientist, continued to work. In the person of his new acquaintance, he found not only a friend, but also a devoted like-minded person.
When Ada Byron turned 20, she was married to a 29-year-old William King, 8th Baron King, who soon inherited the title of Lord Lovelace.
This marriage turned out to be a happy one: the couple had three children, and the husband sincerely loved Ada. He was sympathetic to his wife's passion for mathematics and did not interfere with her scientific pursuits. Moreover, the impressive state of her husband allowed Ada not to bother herself with materialistic questions.
Contemporaries wrote that Ada Lovelace surprisingly combined femininity, grace, charm and a sharp mind. She knew how to behave like a lady of high society, but she was much more willing to communicate with scientists, philosophers and writers.
"Something About Bernoulli Numbers"
In 1842, Charles Babbage was invited to the University of Turin to give a seminar on his analytical engine. Luigi Menabrea, young Italian engineer and future Prime Minister of Italy, transcribed the lecture in French, and it was subsequently published in the Public Library of Geneva in October 1842.
Babbage approached Ada Lovelace with a request to translate Menabrea's notes, accompanying the text with comments.Ada took the matter extremely seriously. The job took her over a year. As a result, her comments took 52 pages, being more extensive than Menabrea's notes.
In 1843, a commentary translation of Ada Lovelace, in fact her own scholarly work, was published. The work was published under the acronym AAL, since it was considered indecent for a woman of high society to publish works under her own name.
On the eve of publication, Ada wrote to Babbage: "I want to insert into one of my notes, something about Bernoulli numbers, as an example of how an implicit function can be computed by a machine without first solving with the help of a human head and hands."
52 pages of genius
"Something" turned out to be a brilliant foresight of the future. Ada Lovelace introduced the terms “cycle” and “work cell”, “allocating map” into circulation, described the basic principles of algorithms. Moreover, its algorithm for calculating Bernoulli numbers on an analytical machine is today considered the first computer program. That is why Ada Lovelace is considered the world's first programmer and is informally called "the mother of all programmers".
“The essence and purpose of the machine will change depending on what information we put into it. The machine will be able to write music, paint pictures and show science such paths that we never dreamed of, ”wrote Ada Lovelace. Think about it, these words were written in the first half of the 19th century!However, the genius of Ada Lovelace was to be appreciated by the descendants, and among her contemporaries her work did not arouse stormy enthusiasm, due to the fact that few could appreciate its significance. Charles Babbage, one of the few who could understand the whole meaning of what Ada wrote, began to call her "my dear interpreter." But after a century and a half, it turns out that the "interpreter" by the power of his scientific thought looked into the future much further than the creator of the "Big Difference Engine".
Ada Lovelace's life was short. In the early 1850s, she fell seriously ill, and on November 27, 1852, she died at the age of 36.
Some pundits work for decades and leave behind hundreds of works that are forgotten before the burial mound settles over the final resting place of their creators. Ade Lovelace, the great daughter of the great Byron, took only 52 pages to make history.
George Byron is one of the greatest English classics. Everyone knows his works. However, his daughter is usually mentioned in passing. Nonetheless, Ada Lovelace is one of the most significant (if not the most significant) figures in programming. And although Ada's contribution was not great, a little more than 50 pages, but what a lot! Many scientists who wrote dozens of dissertations and did not become famous, but Ada became, with only fifty pages. We will tell you the story of Ada Lovelace, the first female programmer.
Ada Lovelace's childhood
September 10, 1815, London. Anna Isabella, wife of George Byron, gave birth to a girl who was named after the poet's sister, Augusta, whose middle name was Ada. The girl's mother was madly in love with mathematics, which she adopted from her daughter. However, a happy childhood was overshadowed: Ada saw her father only once in her life, when she was one month old. After that, George signed the papers and divorced his wife. All his books were removed from the library of the girl's family and for the rest of her life she was called Ada, and not the name that her father gave her.
Ada was a short, little girl. She grew up incredibly educated, because her mother hired the best mathematics professors for her. And my daughter fell in love with mathematics, just like her mother, who was called the "queen of parallelograms".
Adolescence of Ada Lovelace
At the age of seventeen, young Ada was introduced to the court, because her family was quite famous. After that, she often began to attend receptions and dinners, began to "go out". The girl continued to study mathematics with the best teachers. From Mary Somerville (Scottish mathematician; she was Ada's teacher, whom she looked up to), she learned about Charles Babbage, an English scientist and professor at Cambridge. Having met him personally, she began to communicate closely with the professor, a strong friendship struck up between the two mathematicians, and after that they did not stop communicating. Later, Ada met many other outstanding people: physicists, scientists, mathematicians, writers.
Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage
Marriage and married life
Three years have passed. Ada was married to William King, twenty-nine, an English baron. William supported his wife in all her endeavors, he was madly in love with her. This marriage was happy. Despite the unenviable position of women in science at that time, Ada had the opportunity to do what she liked, she always had materials for research. Moreover, due to the wealth of her husband, Ada's actions were not embarrassed financially. The couple had three children: Byron (future peer), Anne (future traveler, published several books) and Ralph (future writer).
Ada Lovelace's family: William King, Byron King, Anne King (Bunt), Ralph King
The King family led a social life and often hosted receptions, meetings and dinners. In this society, Ada was a welcome guest, she could not only talk about science, but was also an exemplary wife and woman. For all her mathematical mindset, Ada was elegant and feminine, one of the best housewives and very interesting person... She surprisingly combined the best qualities of her parents: the cold mind and sophistication of the mother, the emotional makeup of the father's character.
Ada Lovelace in Science
However, back to Ada as a mathematician. She did not stop communicating with Charles Babbage, and after marriage, she conducted research with him. Helped Babbage in the creation of his analytical engine. However, the most important work in her life was the translation of an article by the French mathematician Luigi Menabrea and a commentary on it.
Ada Lovelace diagram
This work was not so important at the time when it was published, but in the future it was a huge success and almost fundamental in programming, because in fact Ada wrote the world's first computer program. In her comments, she said that in the future there will be machines, the purpose of which will change depending on the complexity. Ada predicted that "machines will be able to write music, paint pictures and show science new ways," described the computing machine of her friend and colleague, Charles Babbage. It's amazing how accurately she predicted the capabilities of modern computers back in the 19th century. In general, the book was released under the name AAL and had much more information than the original recordings. It was Ada who introduced such terms as "cycle" and "work cell".
Ada lived a short but happy and joyful life. At the age of 36, she was diagnosed with an illness. Modern doctors say it was cancer of the uterus. Unfortunately, she could not be cured, and Ada died of bloodletting at the age of 36. She was buried in a crypt with her father, whom she did not know during his lifetime.
In honor of Ada Lovelace, a talented female mathematician far ahead of her time, the main programming language ADA was named, created by the US Department of Defense as the main programming language (in this moment it is used by the US military and NASA).
In addition, two small towns in Alabama and Oklahoma are named after her. The latter even has a college that bears her name.
The daughter of the English romantic poet Ada Lovelace is considered the first computer programmer in history. She wrote a program for Babbage's analytical engine - the prototype modern computer developed in the days before there was even electricity. What you need to know about this woman - in the material "Futurist".
What is known about Ada Lovelace?
Oh, there are a lot of interesting things in her biography. Life of Ada was the apotheosis of the struggle between emotions and reason, subjectivism and objectivism, poetry and mathematics, morbid states and surges of energy.
Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron, the greatest English romantic poet, and Anna Isabel Milbank (Annabella). Their marriage was short-lived: just a month after the birth of her daughter, Milbank left Byron, and four months later, the poet left England for good. Annabella was an educated, religious and correct woman - it was no coincidence that Byron, eccentric and hot-tempered, nicknamed his wife "The Princess of Parallelograms". The father kept a photo of Ada on the table and mentioned it in his poems - but he was not destined to see his daughter. He died when Ada was 8.
“Daughter, chick, dear Ada. Are you like a mother, your only dear? On the day of that separation, I could shine. In your eyes, hope is blue ... ”- wrote the poet.
Lady Byron was not close to her daughter and often left little Ada in the care of her grandmother. However, Annabella had to play the role of a loving parent in public. Therefore, she constantly sent her grandmother disturbing letters about Ada's well-being - and attached a note that these letters should be kept in case her maternal feelings were questioned. And yet she was a significant parental figure in Ada's life. Lady Byron did not want her daughter to grow up like her ex-husband - so she discouraged reading poetry and prose and stimulated interest in the exact sciences. This determined the further fate of the girl. Nevertheless, Ada compared herself to the devil and often committed rash acts, which frightened the balanced and strict mother. Once the girl fell in love with a young teacher and tried to escape with him - but she was caught, and they tried to hush up the incident.
In 1835, Ada married William King, who was ten years her senior, and when King inherited the noble title in 1838, they became Earl and Countess of Lovelace. They had three children. In 1952, Ada Lovelace died of cancer of the uterus - probably, the already severe physical condition was aggravated by the bloodletting, which was used by her doctors. She was 36 - the same age as Lord Byron. At her request, she was buried next to her father, whom she did not recognize.
How did Ada start her scientific career?
Lady Byron and Ada belonged to the London elite, where gentlemen who were not members of the clergy and not involved in politics or military affairs could well spend time and money on botany, geology or astronomy. V early XIX there were no "professional" scientists for a century - the word "scientist" was coined by William Wellell in 1836. The participation of women in intellectual pursuits is also not widespread. The range of disciplines that Annabella chose for her daughter was phenomenal - in addition to the music lessons traditional for girls of the time, Ada took lessons in mathematics and logic. One of her teachers was the Scottish mathematician and mystic Augustus de Morgan. His wife Mary Sommerville, who translated the astronomer Pierre Laplace's Treatise on Celestial Mechanics, was Ada's mentor and closest friend.
Ada was a sickly child. At the age of eight, she had headaches so severe that she lost the ability to see. In June 1829, she was paralyzed from measles - Ada spent more than a year in bed and by 1831 had learned to walk with crutches. Despite her severe physical condition, Ada acquired her first mathematical and technological skills. At the age of 12, the girl decided that she wanted to learn to fly - and tried to create mechanical wings. She researched the anatomy of birds to determine the correct proportion between wings and body, studied the properties of various materials and proposed combining the "art of flying" with the capabilities of a steam engine.
In the end, Ada managed to defeat the disease - and in time: she was about to go out for the first time. The young girl was "beautiful, graceful and mysteriously pale." Refined manners and brilliant mind made Ada extremely popular with the London beau monde. She was familiar with the "gentleman of science" Andrew Cross, who made significant progress in mineralogy, but became famous for the experiment, during which, as it seemed to him, he created living things from inanimate matter. Ada talked to physicists David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone and Michael Faraday. In 1833, when Ada was 17 years old, Somerville introduced the girl to Charles Babbage, professor of mathematics at Cambridge. Byron and Babbage began a voluminous correspondence on topics of mathematics, logic and, ultimately, all subjects. The girl became a faithful assistant to the scientist.
Her husband did not interfere with Ada in her hobbies and, on the contrary, helped her financially and did not limit her time. It was a mutually beneficial partnership: Ada's success had a positive effect on William's reputation.
What did Babbage do?
He was a rather versatile man, like many of the gentlemen of science of that time. But the main business of his life was mechanical computers. Babbage dreamed of creating a machine that would replace a huge number of people involved in the calculation of various astronomical, navigation and mathematical tables. This would help avoid computational errors and save a lot of resources. Machines capable of performing simple operations of addition, subtraction, and even multiplication were already in place before Babbage — although they were not widespread. But devices capable of calculating the values of functions and displaying the results on paper in the form of a table have not yet been invented.
As planned by Babbage, the machine was supposed to calculate logarithmic and trigonometric functions using only the addition operation. This method was called the finite difference method. The scientist built an experimental sample with a small amount of "memory" - for this work Babbage was awarded the first gold medal of the Astronomical Society. Babbage decided to create a more versatile machine and approached the Royal and Astronomical Societies to fund the work. In 1823, Babbage received £ 1,500 and began developing a new machine. However, the creation of the device was delayed - the mathematician did not take into account the technological capabilities of his time. In addition, the tragic events of 1827 had a huge impact on Babbage: he buried his father, wife and two children. To restore his health, he traveled across the continent. After traveling in 1828, Babbage continued development, but the design turned out to be too complex, and work had to be stopped.
Despite the setbacks, Babbage in 1834 thought about creating a programmable computer, which he called an analytical machine. It was the prototype of a modern computer: it consisted of a "warehouse" (memory), a "mill" (processor), a control element and an information input-output device. The analytical engine made it possible to solve more problems than the difference engine, and its construction required less time and money, since it had to consist of simpler mechanical elements. Babbage developed the device alone - and only Ada Lovelace became his friend, assistant and the only like-minded person. She criticized Babbage for being restless (he could simultaneously develop metallurgical installations, participate in archaeological excavations and prepare to climb Vesuvius) - and at the same time admired his work. In 1848, she dissuaded Babbage from the idea of creating a tic-tac-toe machine to tour the country to raise money for his projects.
And what did Lovelace program?
Someone considers the merits of Ada Lovelace overestimated - often she is presented only as Babbage's assistant and translator of foreign articles. And she herself saw herself, first of all, as an interpreter of Babbage's works. In one of the letters, Lovelace suggested taking on the role of manager, and Babbage was assigned the role of technical director - so he could focus on his work, while she would knock out funding and defend its development before various authorities. Babbage did not accept this offer, but they found some compromise - and their relationship became even more trusting.
But it was Lovelace who wrote the world's first computer program - an algorithm for calculating Bernoulli numbers for Babbage's analytical engine. Lovelace did not want to sign this work with her name - at the same time, she wanted to add something that would help identify it, link this text with future works. Therefore, the text is signed simply with her initials, A.A.L.
Charles Babbage
Formally, Ada only translated into English an article by the Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea describing Babbage's invention. But she supplemented this translation with detailed comments, increasing the volume of work more than threefold. These notes talked about developing a plan of operations for the analytic engine.
She first explains the difference between the Analytical and Difference Engine: “The Analytical Engine is a reflection of science about operations , constructed so that abstract numbers are subjects of these operations. The difference engine embodies only one specific, moreover, a very limited set of operations. " She then explains how to operate the analytic engine using punched cards - cards with a coded hole pattern: some cards define the sequence of operations, while others define the values of variables. She goes on to present the traditional views on programming: “The analytical engine cannot create something new. It can do whatever we ourselves know how to do ... its purpose is only to help us accomplish what we are already familiar with. " And finally, the most famous and significant part of her work for us is the algorithm for calculating Bernoulli numbers.
In this work, Ada introduces the concepts of "cycle" and "work cell". It also gives, perhaps, the most poetic definition of computer work in history: "the analytical engine weaves algebraic patterns like a Jacquard loom weaving flowers and leaves."
Can you tell us more about Bernoulli numbers?
Scientists used to spend their entire lives calculating sums of equal powers of integers (for example, 1 2 +2 2 +3 2+ + ... + n 2) and presenting these results in a table. But the mathematician Jacob Bernoulli proved that everything is much simpler: you can simply represent this sum as a polynomial with certain coefficients. These coefficients were later called Bernoulli numbers. This sequence (B0, B1, B2) looks like this: 1; -1/2; 1/6; 0; -1/30; 0; 1/42; 0 ...
Ada Lovelace suggested calculating Bernoulli numbers on an analytical machine. She took advantage of the fact that everything is not even numbers Bernoulli (except for B1) are equal to zero and calculated only even numbers. She noticed that for each new number, no more memory is required, but only large quantity operations.
How did Lovelace feel about music?
Like math. She assumed that the power of computing devices would one day allow them to write music.
“If the fundamental relationships between sounds in the science of harmony were amenable to abstract operations, then a machine could use them to write scientific method pieces of music of any complexity, ”wrote Lovelace.
Q.E.D.
What did Lovelace think about neural networks?
No, we're not laughing, she really assumed they were real.
“I do not believe that the structures of the brain are less subject to mathematicians than the movements and properties of stars and planets; quite, if you choose the correct point of view for their consideration. I would like to leave a computable model for future generations nervous system"- wrote Lovelace to the son of Mary Somerville.
Did Lovelace write her own research papers?
No, she was out of luck. First, as a woman, she was limited in scientific activities: in particular, she didn't have access to the library Royal Society in London. Through her efforts, her husband William gained access to literature, who favored his wife's pursuits.
Lovelace believed that she, like many other scientists, should start her career with translation. When the famous notes were published, Babbage advised her to write her own article. But already in 1844 fresh publications about the analytical engine appeared, and Ada had to change her focus of interests. And in 1844, she began to have serious health problems. Children grew up and demanded more and more attention. Finally, financial problems often arose. William was involved in complex construction projects that required additional investment.
What was Lovelace fond of?
It is assumed that she was addicted to betting on the races and even lost some money on it. Evil tongues claimed that this did not happen without the help of Babbage, with whom she allegedly developed a system of win-win bets.
Like many amateur scientists of that time, Ada was fond of esoteric currents - from phrenology to mesmerism (the latter was advised by her mother during one of her attacks of illness). Thanks to her secular upbringing, she excelled in several musical instruments and was fluent in several languages.
Contrary to the will of Annabella, she wrote poetry: only after the death of Ada, her mother surrendered and built a memorial on which she was kept. And shortly before her death, Ada asked Babbage's friend, Charles Dickens, to come to her and read a story about death from one of his books.
In 1951, Ada's condition worsened. The opium no longer suppressed the pain, so she used marijuana. The mother moved into her house and protected her daughter from other people. Three months before her death, Ada made a confession that shocked William: he stopped communicating with her. Lovelace died on November 27, 1852. Her friend Florence Nightingale wrote: "It is said that she could not have lived that long if it had not been for the enormous vitality of her brain, which did not want to die."
Is the Ada programming language named after her?
Yes. In 1983, under the brand name Ada was registered universal language programming, the same for the American armed forces, and then for NATO as a whole. It is curious that there is a Russian algorithmic language with the abbreviation PARADISE - it is used to write and study algorithms in schools.
On December 10, on the birthday of Ada Lovelace, and on July 19, on the day of publication of her memorable article, the unofficial Programmer's Day is celebrated.