Ada Lovelace and Computer Programming
The first in a series of four biographies about overlooked women in science
Charles Babbage developed the concept of computer programming. However, his work was based on the innovations and ideas of Ada Lovelace. Despite having laid the foundation for programming, Lovelace was never given credit.
Ada Lovelace was born on December 10, 1815, and was the only legitimate child of the famous poet Lord George Gordon Byron. Lovelace’s parents were unhappy in their marriage and they separated only weeks after she was born. A little while after, her father left England. Lovelace never saw her father again and he passed away in Greece when she was 8 years old. She wasn’t shown a family portrait of her father until her 20th birthday.
Lovelace had a very uncommon upbringing for an aristocratic girl in the early 19th century. Instead of being encouraged to stay away from science and math, her mother insisted that she pursue those subjects. Lady Byron believed that partaking in tedious studies would stop Lovelace from developing her father’s moody and unpredictable behavior.
Her mother also believed that by making Lovelace remain still for long periods of time she would develop more self-control.
Later in her life, Lovelace was asked to translate an article written by Luigi Federico Menabrea, an Italian engineer. The article concerned Charles Babbage’s analytical engine. Lovelace not only translated the original text from French to English, she added nearly three times as many notes as the article was long. These notes included her own thoughts and ideas on Babbage’s machine. In 1843, her translation was published in a journal which she signed as “A.A.L.,” for Augusta Ada Lovelace. Although she was raised by a progressive mother, she only used her initials in the publication because she knew the rest of the world was not ready for female scientists.
The analytical engine created by Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace was a general purpose early computer, designed to be able to make more than one kind of calculation.
In her notes, Lovelace wrote about how codes could be created for the analytical engine to understand letters, symbols, and numbers. She also proposed a theory for the engine to go over a series of instructions many times — a process known as looping that computer programs use today.
For that work, Lovelace should be thought of as the first known computer programmer.
While she was alive, Lovelace’s work attracted little attention. On November 27, 1852, she passed away from uterine cancer in London at age 36. She was buried beside her father. The recognition she did receive was through many overdue posthumous awards.
Her accomplishments include, but are not limited to:
- Wrote the world’s earliest algorithm for the analytical engine
- Computer language called ‘Ada’, has been named after her
- In 1998 Lovelace was given a posthumous medal from the British Computer Society
- October 13 is Ada Lovelace Day
- The Augusta Ada Lovelace Award is given annually by the Association for Women in Computing
“We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
-Ada Lovelace
