The Imagination of Ada Lovelace
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This document provides an overview of an experimental humanities approach to exploring the imagination of Ada Lovelace. It includes biographical information on Lovelace and her collaborator Charles Babbage, as well as quotes and commentary relevant to understanding her work and vision. The document also describes efforts to recreate Lovelace's ideas digitally through projects like Numbers Into Notes, which maps mathematical sequences to music. The goal is to generate and test hypotheses about Lovelace's computational concepts using modern digital tools and design practices.
![Images
ByCreator:CharlesHayter(NationalPortraitGallery)[PublicdomainorPublicdomain],via
WikimediaCommons.
ByRichardWestall(died1836)[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons.
Scannedfrom TheCalculatingPassionofAdaByron byJoanBaum.Originallyfromthe
Lovelace-ByronCollection. [Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons.
[Publicdomain]viaWikimediaCommons:http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~elliotk/portfolio/ada/
AdaLovelace/Earllovelace.gif.
ByH.Lenthall,sucessortoMrKilburn,222RegentStreet,London([1])[Publicdomain],via
WikimediaCommons
Anne Isabella
(Annabella) Milbanke
1792 – 1860
George Gordon Byron
1788 – 1824
Augusta Ada Byron
1815 – 1852
m. 1835
m. 1815
William King
1805 – 1893
Byron King Noel
1836 – 1862
Anne Isabella Noel Blunt
1837 – 1917
Ralph Gordon King
Noel Milbanke
1839 – 1906
Augusta Ada Noel Byron](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-3-320.jpg)
![Images:ByCreator:CharlesHayter(NationalPortraitGallery)[PublicdomainorPublicdomain],
viaWikimediaCommons
ByRichardWestall(died1836)[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons
ByUnknown(JohnMurrayPublishersLondon)(ScannedfromByronandhisWorldbyDerek
Parker.)[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons
ByStippleengravingbyAndrewBirrell,afterSylvesterHarding[Publicdomain],viaWikimedia
Commons.
[Publicdomain]viahttp://www.thisbrighton.co.uk/Images/city-politics/dr-william-king.jpg.
ThomasPhillips[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons.
BySophiaElizabethDeMorgan(MemoirofAugustusDeMorgan)[Publicdomain],via
WikimediaCommons
Anne Isabella
(Annabella) Milbanke
1792 – 1860
George Gordon Byron
1788 – 1824
Augusta Ada Byron
1815 – 1852
William Frend
1757 – 1841
William King
1786 – 1865
Mary Fairfax Somerville
1780 – 1872
Augustus de Morgan
1806 – 1871
Augusta Ada Noel Byron](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-4-320.jpg)
![The daughter
Images
ByCreator:CharlesHayter(NationalPortraitGallery)[PublicdomainorPublicdomain],via
WikimediaCommons.
ByRichardWestall(died1836)[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons.
Scannedfrom TheCalculatingPassionofAdaByron byJoanBaum.Originallyfromthe
Lovelace-ByronCollection. [Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons.
Mad, bad, and
dangerous to know
—Caroline Lamb
Mathematical,
methodical, and moral
—Annabella Byron
Science vs. Creativity?](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-5-320.jpg)
![Images
AntoineClaudet. Daguerreotype ofAdaLovelace,ownedbyGeoffreyBond.
AlfredEdwardChalon[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons
AntoineClaudet[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons.
A generative friendship, 1833 –1852](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-7-320.jpg)
![ByUnknownstaffartistforTheIllustratedLondonNews[Publicdomain],via
WikimediaCommons
Charles Babbage
• Mathematician, philosopher, inventor,
mechanical engineer, polemicist
• Fellow of the Royal Society, 1815
• Founding member of Astronomical
Society, 1820
• Lucasian Professor of Mathematics,
University of Cambridge, 1828 – 1839
• 1791-1871](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-8-320.jpg)
![Image:creatorunknown,[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons
Babbage to Michael Faraday
“that Enchantress who has
thrown her magic spell around
the most abstract of Sciences has
grasped it with a force which few
masculine intellects (in our
country at least) could have
exerted.”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-11-320.jpg)
![ByUser:geni(PhotobyUser:geni)[GFDL(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)orCCBY-SA
4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)],via
WikimediaCommons
Difference Engine #2
Built 1989 – 1991 after Babbage’s
plans and Allan Bromley’s work.
Babbage’s improved plans: 1847 – 1849
Computing by
steam video](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-12-320.jpg)
![MargaretSarahCarpenter[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons
Lovelace on Babbage
“What a mountain I have to climb! It
is enough to frighten anyone who
had not all that most insatiable &
restless energy, which from my
babyhood has been the plague of
your life and my own. However it
has found food I believe at last.”
“He is beyond measure careless and
desultory at times. I shall be willing
to be his whipper-in.”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-13-320.jpg)
![Computational creativity?
MargaretSarahCarpenter[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons
“The Analytical Engine has no
pretensions to originate anything.
It can do whatever we know how
to order it to perform. It can follow
analysis; but it has no power of
anticipating any analytical relations
or truths. Its province is to assist us
in making available what we are
already acquainted with.”
Boden’s Lovelace questions:
1. Helping human creativity
2. Appearing creative
3. Recognizing creativity
4. Creating](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-30-320.jpg)
![Gradus[n_] :=
Plus @@ (Flatten[Table[#1, {#2}] & @@@ FactorInteger[n]] - 1) + 1
a(n) = A001414(n) - A001222(n) + 1
where
A001414 = sum of primes dividing n (with repetition)
A001222 = Number of prime divisors of n counted with multiplicity](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-38-320.jpg)
![The explorer
“Those who have learned
to walk on the thresholds
of unknown worlds…may
then with the fair white
wings of Imagination hope
to sore further into the
unexplored amidst which
we live.”
ByHenryPhillips(1820–1868),sonofThomasPhillips[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-45-320.jpg)
![This research is supported by the FAST project funded
by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council (EP/L019981/1)
Imagecredit:NewYorkPublicLibrary.[Publicdomain]
With particular thanks to:
Pip Willcox
• Alan Chamberlain
• Graham Klyne
• Emily Howard
• Ursula Martin
• Lasse Rempe-Gillen
• David Weigl
• AHRC Transforming
Musicology
• Ada Lovelace
Symposium
Thank you](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/theimaginationofadalovelace-171010132353/85/The-Imagination-of-Ada-Lovelace-46-320.jpg)
The Imagination of Ada Lovelace
- 1. The Imagination of Ada Lovelace An Experimental Humanities Approach David De Roure @dder Pip Willcox @pipwillcox
- 2. A context Jacquard loom London:! the! Waltz! Lovelace! born! Darwin:! Origin of ! Species! Babbage! dies! Helmholtz:! Sensations! of Tone! Dickens! dies! Markov! born! Lovelace! dies! Austen! dies! Lovelace! presented! Lovelace! meets! Babbage! Wheatstone: telegraph Coronation: Victoria Lovelace:! Translator’s! Notes!
- 3. Images ByCreator:CharlesHayter(NationalPortraitGallery)[PublicdomainorPublicdomain],via WikimediaCommons. ByRichardWestall(died1836)[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons. Scannedfrom TheCalculatingPassionofAdaByron byJoanBaum.Originallyfromthe Lovelace-ByronCollection. [Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons. [Publicdomain]viaWikimediaCommons:http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~elliotk/portfolio/ada/ AdaLovelace/Earllovelace.gif. ByH.Lenthall,sucessortoMrKilburn,222RegentStreet,London([1])[Publicdomain],via WikimediaCommons Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke 1792 – 1860 George Gordon Byron 1788 – 1824 Augusta Ada Byron 1815 – 1852 m. 1835 m. 1815 William King 1805 – 1893 Byron King Noel 1836 – 1862 Anne Isabella Noel Blunt 1837 – 1917 Ralph Gordon King Noel Milbanke 1839 – 1906 Augusta Ada Noel Byron
- 4. Images:ByCreator:CharlesHayter(NationalPortraitGallery)[PublicdomainorPublicdomain], viaWikimediaCommons ByRichardWestall(died1836)[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons ByUnknown(JohnMurrayPublishersLondon)(ScannedfromByronandhisWorldbyDerek Parker.)[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons ByStippleengravingbyAndrewBirrell,afterSylvesterHarding[Publicdomain],viaWikimedia Commons. [Publicdomain]viahttp://www.thisbrighton.co.uk/Images/city-politics/dr-william-king.jpg. ThomasPhillips[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons. BySophiaElizabethDeMorgan(MemoirofAugustusDeMorgan)[Publicdomain],via WikimediaCommons Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke 1792 – 1860 George Gordon Byron 1788 – 1824 Augusta Ada Byron 1815 – 1852 William Frend 1757 – 1841 William King 1786 – 1865 Mary Fairfax Somerville 1780 – 1872 Augustus de Morgan 1806 – 1871 Augusta Ada Noel Byron
- 5. The daughter Images ByCreator:CharlesHayter(NationalPortraitGallery)[PublicdomainorPublicdomain],via WikimediaCommons. ByRichardWestall(died1836)[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons. Scannedfrom TheCalculatingPassionofAdaByron byJoanBaum.Originallyfromthe Lovelace-ByronCollection. [Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know —Caroline Lamb Mathematical, methodical, and moral —Annabella Byron Science vs. Creativity?
- 6. Lovelace to Augustus De Morgan Copyright.AllAdaLovelacemanuscriptimagesontheClayMathematicsInstitutewebsiteare ©2015TheLovelaceByronPapers,reproducedby permissionofPollingerLimited. http://www.claymath.org/publications/ada-lovelaces- mathematical-papers
- 8. ByUnknownstaffartistforTheIllustratedLondonNews[Publicdomain],via WikimediaCommons Charles Babbage • Mathematician, philosopher, inventor, mechanical engineer, polemicist • Fellow of the Royal Society, 1815 • Founding member of Astronomical Society, 1820 • Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, University of Cambridge, 1828 – 1839 • 1791-1871
- 9. Photograph:DavidDeRourefromanexhibitionatTheScienceMuseum,London,UK. Difference Engine #1 Assembled by Henry Prevost Babbage after his father’s death 25,000 parts, 15 tons, 2.4m high, £17,000
- 10. Imagecredit:UCLLibrary,https://www.lms.ac.uk/2015/queen-of-the-sciences Sophia Frend on Lovelace “While other visitors gazed at the working of this beautiful instrument with the sort of expression, and I dare say the sort of feeling, that some savages are said to have shown on first seeing a looking-glass or hearing a gun… Miss Byron, young as she was, understood its working, and saw the great beauty of the invention.” —Sophia Frend (later de Morgan) Sophia de Morgan, Memoir of Augustus De Morgan (1882). https://archive.org/details/memoirofaugustus00demorich
- 11. Image:creatorunknown,[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons Babbage to Michael Faraday “that Enchantress who has thrown her magic spell around the most abstract of Sciences has grasped it with a force which few masculine intellects (in our country at least) could have exerted.”
- 12. ByUser:geni(PhotobyUser:geni)[GFDL(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)orCCBY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)],via WikimediaCommons Difference Engine #2 Built 1989 – 1991 after Babbage’s plans and Allan Bromley’s work. Babbage’s improved plans: 1847 – 1849 Computing by steam video
- 13. MargaretSarahCarpenter[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons Lovelace on Babbage “What a mountain I have to climb! It is enough to frighten anyone who had not all that most insatiable & restless energy, which from my babyhood has been the plague of your life and my own. However it has found food I believe at last.” “He is beyond measure careless and desultory at times. I shall be willing to be his whipper-in.”
- 14. Talking of Lovelace and Babbage "There is one subject ancillary to Babbage on which far too much has been written…It is no exaggeration to say that she was a manic-depressive with the most amazing delusions about her own talents, and a rather shallow understanding of both Charles Babbage and the Analytical Engine…I guess someone has to be the most overrated figure in the history of computing." —Collier (1990)
- 15. https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/ada-lovelace-symposium- celebrating-200-years-computer-visionary Ada Lovelace Symposium 10–11 December 2015
- 16. Lovelace translates and notates Menebrea “Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.” Photograph:PipWillcox,fromTaylor’sScientificMemoirsprovidedbyMagdalenCollegeLibrary
- 17. DMRN+9
- 18. Numbers Into Notes 30 November 2015 http://www.oerc.ox.ac.uk/news/ada-sketches-emily-howard Photographsbykindpermissionof AngelaGuyton/ScienceMuseum Emily Howard Lasse Rempe-Gillen Lily Caunt Aidan Marsden German Martinez Merino Rosie Middleton
- 20. Ada Lovelace: Notes and Numbers “… the Mill has two 50 digit Ingress Axes to which arguments are transferred, with the first Ingress Axis having an auxiliary 50 digit Primed Axis which receives the most significant 50 digits when a 100 digit number is divided by a number of up to 50 digits. Results from an arithmetic operation appear on the Mill's 50 digit Egress Axis, which is also accompanied by a 50 digit Primed axis which, in the case of division, receives the quotient while the remainder appears on the main Egress Axis. In addition, the Mill has a Run-up Lever which is activated when exceptional conditions arise during an arithmetic operation.” John Walker h,ps://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/
- 21. https://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/emulator.html N0 35 . modulus N1 82 . number of numbers N2 1 . a N3 1 . b N4 0 . number counter N5 2 . constant 2 (? / L2 L0 S2 P L3 L0 S3 P + L2 L3 S2 L2 L3 S3 L4 . update count L5 S4 - L4 L1 )
- 22. Ada Lovelace: Notes and Numbers all F4-A5 D1-C4 Fib 35 Theme (F4-A5) Fib 35 Puffle (D1-C4)
- 23. Piano Harp Piano Xylophone Tuba 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 & Fibonacci mod 35 ('Puffle') PipWillcox David De Roure for Analytical Engine, Piano, Harp, andTuba ? ∑ & & ∑ ∑ ? ∑ & ? ∑ ∑ œ œ œ ‰™ œ r ≈ œ œ Œ Ó Ó Œ œ™ j ≈ œ r ‰™ œ J ‰ Ó Ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Œ œ j ‰ œ œ ≈ ‰ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰™ œ R Œ œ j ‰ Œ Ó Ó Ó Œ œ œ œ œ œ™ œ œ œ œ œ œ Ó Ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ
- 26. http://numbersintonotes.net Numbers Into Notes 1. Generate a sequence of numbers using an Analytical Engine algorithm. 2. Reduce these numbers to a smaller range of numbers, using clock arithmetic. 3. Play Numbers Into Notes: explore, visualize and play the number sequence interactively. 4. Export this data to music notation, MIDI, a number roll, or a W3C PROV-N graph.
- 27. Euler’s sequence: https://oeis.org/A275314 http://numbersintonotes.net Mathematics in Lovelace’s day Fibonacci—Lagrange noted periodic functions in Fibonacci numbers in 1774, the “Pisano period’ Pi—Pi was calculated by hand to 100 decimal places in 1706 using Machin's algorithm Golden Ratio—The number that the ratio of successive Fibonacci numbers converges to (1.618...) Prime numbers—Calculated here using the Sieve of Eratosthenes Random—Musical dice games were popular in the 1700s and generate random numbers Factorials—The notation for factorial, e.g. 20!, was introduced in 1808 Consonance— A mathematical function for calculating consonance was defined by Leonhard Euler in1739 20!
- 30. Computational creativity? MargaretSarahCarpenter[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons “The Analytical Engine has no pretensions to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with.” Boden’s Lovelace questions: 1. Helping human creativity 2. Appearing creative 3. Recognizing creativity 4. Creating
- 31. Numbers Into Notes: the première Photographs:DavidDeRoure https://soundcloud.com/alain_du_norde/the-gift- the-algorithm-beyond-autonomy-and-control
- 32. • Programmable circuit boards: Arduinos • Replicating Numbers Into Notes Web app • Controlled by co-creating participants • Selecting and mapping a subset of notes • Learning to suggest augmentations Music engines “The engine is capable, under certain circumstances, of feeling about to discover which of two or more possible contingencies has occurred, and of then shaping its future course accordingly.” Photographs:DavidDeRoureandPipWillcox Lovelace:
- 34. Material algorithms USB MIDI • Hardware is a physical object containing the algorithm • Plugs in anywhere that expects a MIDI keyboard • Algorithm can be “gifted” c = a + b; if (c >= m) { c -= m; } a = b; b = c;
- 35. CharlesWheatstone “A MURDER HAS GUST BEEN COMMITTED AT SALT HILL AND THE SUSPECTED MURDERER WAS SEEN TO TAKE A FIRST CLASS TICKET TO LONDON BY THE TRAIN WHICH LEFT SLOUGH AT 742 PM HE IS IN THE GARB OF A KWAKER…” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooke_and_Wheatstone_telegraph (John Tawell, 1845)
- 36. Imagecredit:NewYorkPublicLibrary.[Public An information machine “not only the mental and the material, but the theoretical and the practical in the mathematical world, are brought into more intimate and effective connexion with each other. …We may say most aptly, that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
- 38. Gradus[n_] := Plus @@ (Flatten[Table[#1, {#2}] & @@@ FactorInteger[n]] - 1) + 1 a(n) = A001414(n) - A001222(n) + 1 where A001414 = sum of primes dividing n (with repetition) A001222 = Number of prime divisors of n counted with multiplicity
- 43. Thinking through making Galey, A., Ruecker, S. ‘How a prototype argues.’ Literary and Linguistic Computing 2010, (25)4: 405-24. doi:10.1093/llc/fqq021. “It makes a difference whether we think in terms of processes or of products.” “a prototype is a theory”—Lev Manovich (2007) “one of the goals of the designer has been deliberately to carry out an interpretive act in the course of producing an artifact"
- 44. Experimental humanities: methods and practices 1. Taking inspiration from ideas of the past 2. Generating and testing hypotheses 3. Designing digital artefacts 4. Informing intuitions 5. Explicating interpretations 6. Engaging with scholars and citizens 7. Evaluating and co-creating iterations
- 45. The explorer “Those who have learned to walk on the thresholds of unknown worlds…may then with the fair white wings of Imagination hope to sore further into the unexplored amidst which we live.” ByHenryPhillips(1820–1868),sonofThomasPhillips[Publicdomain],viaWikimediaCommons
- 46. This research is supported by the FAST project funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L019981/1) Imagecredit:NewYorkPublicLibrary.[Publicdomain] With particular thanks to: Pip Willcox • Alan Chamberlain • Graham Klyne • Emily Howard • Ursula Martin • Lasse Rempe-Gillen • David Weigl • AHRC Transforming Musicology • Ada Lovelace Symposium Thank you