Ada Lovelace: The “Enchantress of Numbers” In a world that is currently dominated by computers, it’s hard to imagine what it was like before they were invented. Though computers only began having a major influence in the last 60 years, the idea for them was first conceived almost 200 years ago. This technology would not have been possible without the work of Ada Lovelace, who is considered one of the pioneers in the field of computer programming. She had a vision of the possible benefits and capabilities of a computing machine. Even though she would never see her vision become a reality, her legacy and work had a lasting impact on the future of technology. However, during her lifetime she experienced multiple setbacks in pursuing her education …show more content…
She was lucky to be born into a rich family, because at the time only the wealthy could afford tutors. However, even Ada’s mother became displeased with how Ada’s behavior deviated from what was considered normal and expected of women at the time. She began giving Ada a daily dose of laudanum as a cure for “her beautiful, outspoken daughter's nonconforming behavior” (Rheingold). Ada would eventually become addicted to laudanum as a result of her mother’s actions and it would plague her for the rest of her life. Ada Lovelace’s early childhood demonstrates how society viewed the education of women. Girls could be allowed to learn in order to prevent them from gaining frivolous and dangerous ideas, but their knowledge must be limited and controlled. They were still expected to behave in demure manner, which Ada would continue to fight against into her …show more content…
He was now focusing on designing an “Analytic Engine”, which would be a machine that could perform calculations without user input. Ada immediately grasped the potential significance of such a machine and impressed Babbage with her ideas on the concept of a calculating engine. Her friend, Sophia Frend, later wrote, “Miss Byron, young as she was, understood its working, and saw the great beauty of the invention” (Toole 51). Ada requested that Babbage send her the blueprints for the machine so that she could further understand it. This was the beginning of a long intellectual relationship between the two and they would continue to correspond and collaborate for the next nine years. However, her mother disagreed with Babbage’s metaphysical views on mathematics and “preferred that Ada be grounded in what she considered the facts” (Toole 52). Despite this, Ada continued to meet and write with Baggage. She would go against her mother’s wishes by deciding to “not destroy her imagination but use it in her own way” (Toole 53). Ada’s work no longer focused on studying what had already been learned, but instead imagined new
On Halloween 2003 Bethany Hamilton was surfing on the coast Kauai, Hawaii. She was attacked moments later by a tiger shark. Bethany lost her arm in the attack; she stayed calmed and didn’t freak out. Bethany told others that she had been attacked and her friend’s dad rushed to her to tie off the bleeding stump with his reef guards and got her to shore. Her brother Byron called the ambulance. When the ambulance arrived she was rushed to the hospital. Even though Bethany had lost over half of her body’s blood, the surgery was a success. The doctor
Before NASA’s computers were made from metal and glass, they were made of courage and a mathematician’s brain. In the 1960’s humans sat down with a pencil and a piece of paper to calculate problems. Christine Darden was one of them. She started at Winchester Avenue High School and then went on to Virginia State College.
With her superb mathematical intellect, Katherine became a “computer” at NASA. On the article called Human Computers found on NASA, “The term ‘computer’ referred to people, not machines. It was a job title designating someone who performed mathematical equations and calculations by hand. Over the next thirty years, hundreds
In 1973, 19-year-old Maria Elena left Colombia and arrived alone in Miami. Speaking just a few words of English. Her goal was to learn 50 new words a day. By talking to people and reading children’s books. Soon she spoke well enough to enroll at Florida International University, earn a computer science degree, and so impressed college officials that they hired her as a programmer.
Ada showed talent for numbers and language from early on, and met one Charles Babbage at age 17, who was also a mathematician (and additionally an inventor). He invented the difference
Ada Lovelace, in full Ada King, countess of Lovelace, original name Augusta Ada Byron, Lady Byron (born December 10, 1815, Piccadilly Terrace, Middlesex [now in London], England—died November 27, 1852, Marylebone, London), English mathematician, an associate of Charles Babbage, for whose prototype of a digital computer she created a program. She has been called the first computer programmer.
Ada Lovelace was a child of the famous poet Lord George Gordon Byron. A few months after she was born her father left, and Ada never saw her him again. From early on, she showed a talent for numbers and language. At her mother's insistence, tutors taught her mathematics and science. Ada was also forced to lie still for extended periods of time because her mother believed it would help her develop self-control. Around the age of 17, Ada met Charles Babbage, a mathematician and inventor.Babbage served as a mentor to Ada and she was fascinated by his ideas. Ada was later asked to translate an article on Babbage's analytical engine that had been written by Italian engineer Luigi Federico Menabrea. She not only translated the original French text
In 1842, Ada Lovelace learned that Charles Baggage had given a series of lectures on his Analytical Engine. Luigi Federico Menabrea had written up the lectures in the French work, Sketch of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Though Babbage would never build the Analytical Engine, its concept was groundbreaking for the time. It was essentially the first idea for a programmable computer. Ada was so fascinated with the topic that she decided to translate the work into English. Babbage was impressed with her work and asked her “why she had not herself written an original paper on a subject which she is so intimately acquainted” (du Preez 108). At the time, women rarely were able to publish original work. They were usually forced to do as Ada did, merely translate the work of men. Ada successfully managed to circumvent this obstacle by adding a series of notes to Babbage’s original text. Her notes ended up being three times as long as the original, and even corrected many of the mistakes that Babbage had made. He noted that in doing so Ada was able to “enter fully into almost all the very difficult and abstract questions connected with the subject” (du Preez 108). These notes laid out the concept of computer programming and the required elements for a computer language. Unfortunately, Ada was still required to use a pseudonym, her initials A.A.L, in order to get the notes published in journals.
Ada understood the working and the potential that went along with the Analytical Machine and had been interested it for 10 years. In 1843, Ada had come to translate a paper written by an Italian mathematician and engineer. She translated the paper from French to English, describing a machine’s function that Babbage invented. According to Ada’s notes, “The distinctive characteristic of the Analytical Engine, and that which has rendered it possible to endow mechanism with such extensive faculties as bid fair to make this engine the executive right-hand of abstract algebra, is the introduction into it of the principle which Jacquard devised for regulating, by means of punched cards, the most complicated patterns in the fabrication of brocaded stuffs. It is in this that the distinction between the two engines lies. Nothing of the sort exists in the Difference Engine. We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.” (p.696) Her notes were published under the initials, A.A.L (Augustus Ada Lovelace). Though her friends knew the initials, by this time her health had
Long before machine computers, desktops and multifunction calculators were created, humans did all the “computing” by hand. Women working as human computers dates back to the late nineteenth century when the Harvard College Observatory hired several women to collect, study and catalog thousands of images of stars. These women paved the way for women who would work in computing, engineering, and aerospace industries as human computers (Woodman, 2016). NASA began hiring women of color to work as computers after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Dorothy, Mary, and Katherine all began as
Ada, at her mother’s insistence was taught mathematics and science by tutors. At the time girls were not taught such challenging subjects. Ada’s mother believed that such subjects would stop Ada from developing her father’s hateful and uncertain character. Ada’s mother would also make her lie perfectly still for long durations of time because she was convinced it would help Ada develop self-discipline.
Ada Lovelace was born on December 10th, 1815 to romantic poet, Lord Byron and Anne Isabelle (nicknamed Annabella) Milbanke. Her parents separated only months after Ada was born. Ada was a very sick child. Around age eight, she suffered headaches so intense they affected her vision. At age 13, she contracted a case of measles, causing her to be paralyzed, confined to bed for a whole year. She did recover, though she had to walk on crutches. Despite being very ill, Ada got an excellent education from tutors, her mother hired. Her mother Annabella was not really concerned with Ada’s education, however. Her main motivation for emerging Ada in math and science was that she was worried Ada would be mentally unstable, like her father the poet. Ada was mostly taken care of my her grandmother, Judith. Annabelle didn’t care much for Ada, even referring to her as “it” in a letter to Judith:
Her parents suggested that she follow a career in teaching as this was one of the only professions available to young woman in the male dominated society in which Maria Montessori lived. She would not even consider it at this point.
Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, also known as the “Grandma COBOL” was a remarkable woman who took up the challenge of programming the first computer, Mark I. During her lifetime as a leader in the field of technology she founded the basis of modern-day computer language as we know it, essentially teaching computers to speak as well as contributing to the transition from primitive programming techniques to the usage of sophisticated compilers. Due to her extraordinary achievements in computer science, she paved the way for future visionaries to further their knowledge and create the modern day technology we use today, and is recognized for
In a world that is dominated by men, there were few women who could stand up and be noticed in the earlier years. In the early nineteenth century, Ada Augusta Byron Lovelace, made herself known among the world of men and her work still influences today's world. She is considered the "Mother of Computer Programming" and the "Enchantress of Numbers." The world of computers began with the futuristic knowledge of Charles Babbage and Lady Lovelace. She appeared to know more about Babbage's work of the Analytical Engine than he himself knew. During the time of Lovelace's discoveries, women were just beginning to take part in the scientific world, although the attitude towards women and education was that women should not exceed or match