Download Ada Lovelace Wrote First Computer Program

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We can add to the pantheon of great women in science the name Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, the daughter of Romantic poet Lord Byron.Lovelace has been renowned, as Hank Green tells us in the video at the top of the post, for writing the first computer program, “despite living a century before the invention of the modern computer.”. Augusta Ada king, Countess of Lovelace was a famous English mathematician and considered to be the first woman to write the world's first algorithm (computer program ) for Charles Babbage (father of the computer ) 'Analytical Engine' to calculate 'Bernoulli's number'. How many of us know that Ada Lovelace was the World’s First Computer Programmer? She wrote the world’s first computer program in 1842, several decades before the computer was developed. Her interests and training: Ada was an accomplished mathematician in the era when educated women were rare. Lovelace wrote what is called the first computer program for the. When, shortly before his death, he wrote asking about Ada’s upbringing. Augusta Ada Lovelace is known as the first computer programmer. Ada Lovelace: The First Computer Programmer. Ada Lovelace is considered to have written instructions for the first computer program in the mid.

Augusta Ada Byron (in 1835 she married King William IV which would eventually make her the Countess of Lovelace, resulting in people calling her Ada Lovelace) was born to the famous poet Lord Byron and his then wife on December 10th 1815, and was the first person to write a computer program – 100 years before the computer was invented. She was Byron’s only legitimate child however had little contact with him as Byron and his wife separated when Ada was only one month old.

Byron was notorious for his ‘immoral’ behaviour; he was forced to leave England due to scandal in April 1816 and his body only returned in 1824 for burial. His behaviour and her bitterness towards Byron caused Ada’s mother to steer her away from artistic subjects and, controversially for women of her time, she was taught science and maths. She showed a flair for maths from a young age, a skill that would allow her to be an intellectual equal to polymaths years her senior.

Although she was was ill as a child, having been paralysed from measles in 1829, she still found ways to use the maths and science taught to her by her tutors. One of whom, Mary Somerville, was a close friend, and introduced Lovelace to Charles Babbage (the father of computing) when she was 17. Although different in many ways, the couple had a passion for maths and a real talent for it. He became a mentor to Lovelace and she was immensely fascinated by his work on the ‘Difference Engine’, a mechanical calculator that Babbage invented. He, in turn, was impressed by her mathematical and analytical skills and showed her a prototype of the device. Then, in 1842, she was asked to translate an Italian mathematician’s French paper on Babbage’s newest idea, the Analytical Engine. She did the job, adding notes as she went, with her notes ending up becoming triple the length of the original article. Her notes were published the next year under the initials A.A.L. in a British scientific journal.

The analytical engine in now recognised as an early model for a computer, and in Lovelace’s notes she described an algorithm for generating Bernoulli numbers (a sequence of rational numbers) with the analytical engine. This is the first ever computer program, as well as a theorized method for the engine to repeat a process known as looping and other concepts which are also used in modern computing. Because of this, some people call her the mother of computing, as well as the first computer programmer. Her and Babbage were a century before their time. If they had been able to apply their ideas in mass, then we may have advanced massively in technology and could have changed the course of the 20th century. Do you think that we should invest in projects which could be revolutionary today? Are we missing chances like the British government did in the 19th century when they were unable to put money into the Analytical Engine? let me know

Computer Science Ada Lovelace

The first programmable computer—if it were built—would have been a gigantic, mechanical thing clunking along with gears and levers and punch cards. That was the vision for Analytical Engine devised by British inventor Charles Babbage in 1837. Whereas Babbage is credited with the machine’s conception, it was perhaps his friend Ada Lovelace who best understood its promise and the potential that computers would one day fulfill. The daughter of Romantic poet Lord Byron, Lovelace was a gifted mathematician and intellectual who translated an Italian article on the Analytical Engine and supplemented it with extensive notes on the machine’s capabilities. In these notes she not only explained the engine more clearly than Babbage had been able to, but she also described an algorithm it could carry out that is often considered to be the world’s first computer program.

Lovelace died early on into her friendship with Babbage, and the Analytical Engine was never built—except for in the pages of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage (Pantheon, April 2015), a graphic novel by artist and animator Sydney Padua. In Padua’s story the two friends complete the gargantuan engine and become an eccentric, techy crime-fighting duo. Scientific American spoke to Padua about the importance of Ada Lovelace Day—celebrated every second Tuesday of October—and Padua’s own experience as a woman working in the technological field of digital animation.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

Ada Lovelace Story

What drew you to the story of Lovelace and Babbage?
It was an accident. I was in a pub with my friend Suw Charman, who started Lovelace Day, when she suggested I do a blog post. I didn’t really think of myself as a woman in tech—I worked on computers, but very reluctantly. I did a very short biographical comic [on Lovelace and Babbage] in a couple of evenings, and then it got so much pickup. I then became fascinated with the story and completely fell in love with Lovelace and Babbage. From there, it just took on a life of its own.

What’s the idea behind Lovelace Day?
I’m not connected to Lovelace Day in any formal way. But by having a day where you just flood the Internet with blog posts about women doing cool stuff [in science and technology], you create a perceptual shift: There are tons of women doing all sorts of stuff, so [women will think], “I’m not the weirdo.”

How does Ada Lovelace’s story relate to women in science today?
It’s hard to walk the straight and narrow and follow the perfect path, which 19th-century women had to do. Lovelace reminds me of modern women and their relationship to science in that she’s conflicted about it, [thinking,] “Do I want to go into the humanities or do I want to study math?” She was extremely aware of her oddity as a woman in mathematics; the knowledge that she wasn’t supposed to be doing mathematics was psychologically very difficult to her. And I think a lot of women can relate to that feeling of having to do everything right and being self-conscious in science.

Download Ada Lovelace Wrote First Computer Program

Have you felt this yourself as a woman in computer science?
I think that might have been a reason I stayed away from computer animation for so long—you’re hyperconscious in a way that makes work very difficult. That feeling that you’re not a native [and] a bit in enemy territory. It’s subtle, but I think it’s still a very powerful force when you start running into difficulty.

Do you see things improving?
I teach animation. Every year I’m getting more and more girls in my class and they’re absolutely killing it, not just in terms of the animation but the tech and rigging and whatnot. So it’s definitely having a big turnaround in my field, which is incredibly heartening.

Ada Lovelace Computer

You said you work on computers reluctantly. What do you like about Babbage’s Analytical Engine?
It’s the abstraction of computers I don’t like very much. Whereas I love the Analytical Engine because you can see every single part of it and understand what it does. It’s just a much more intuitive way of grasping all these concepts.

Download Ada Lovelace Wrote First Computer Programming

For example, I love the barrels! Nobody talks about the barrels [the mechanism that stores the machine’s programs], which to me are the most amazing thing. I love them because they’re clearly adapted from a music box or barrel organ, with the pegs and everything, which is just great because Babbage had this famous war with street musicians. I like the resonance there. And they’re just these beautiful, clever things where one card can let you run through this whole very complicated sequence with dozens of levers. I think they’re just delightful.

Ada Lovelace Computer Algorithm

In modern times Lovelace’s work is known as a precursor for computer programs. Was she recognized while she was alive?
Just the other day I actually found an obituary from a Canadian paper from 1852 that—extremely unusually for Lovelace obituaries—focused entirely on her Analytical Engine paper. So I was pretty delighted. Almost everyone else was like, “oh, Byron’s daughter,” and wouldn’t even mention the math.