Ada and the Analytical Machine: The Legacy of Ada Lovelace
- 1. ADA A N D T H E A N A L Y T I C A L M A C H I N E
- 2. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TWO 19TH CENTURY ARISTOCRATS - ONE WELL- STUDIED IN THE ARTS AND LITERATURE AND THE OTHER IN ARITHMETIC - COME TOGETHER AND HAVE A CHILD? WELL, THE ANSWER IS THE WORLD'S FIRST COMPUTER PROGRAMMER, APPARENTLY. D A R R E L L B E N V E N U T O . N E TT W O
- 3. Enter into the scene Ada Lovelace, or Augusta Ada Byron as she was known before her groundbreaking success in mathematics and her marriage to William King (King would later become the Earl of Lovelace). Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron and his wife, Lady Anne Isabella Milbanke Byron. Born into a wealthy family in 1815, Ada was afforded many opportunities not available to the majority of the general population at her time.
- 4. WhenAdawasonly17,shemetCharlesBabbage, mathematician,inventor,andfatherofthecomputer. BabbageservedasaconduittoAda’ssuccessesandhelped developherimpressiveintellectandskills.Throughhishelp, AdabeganstudyingadvancedmathematicswithAugustusde Morgan,aUniversityofLondonprofessor. D A R R E L L B E N V E N U T O . N E TF O U R
- 5. Babbage invented the difference engine, the machine meant to perform mathematical calculations automatically and without error. Ada was fascinated by this invention, and she got a chance to look over it before it was finished. The machine promoted Babbage’s creation of a device known as the analytical engine, a predecessor to the modern computer of sorts which was designed to handle more complex algorithms and calculations than his previous invention.
- 6. Adatranslated(shewasalsowell-versedinmultiple languages)anarticleontheanalyticalenginethathadbeen writtenbyItalianengineerLuigiFedericoMenabreaand publishedintheSwissjournal.Notonlydidshetranslatethe article,butsheaddedhernotestoit,notesthatwerethree timeslongerthantheoriginalarticle.In1843,herworkwas publishedinanEnglishsciencejournal,usingtheinitials “A.A.L.” D A R R E L L B E N V E N U T O . N E TS I X