Lived 1815 – 1852.
Born two centuries ago, Ada Lovelace was a pioneer of computing science. She took part in writing the first published program and was a computing visionary, recognizing for the first time that computers could do much more than just calculations.
Early Life and Education
Ada Lovelace was born in London, England, UK on December 10, 1815. She was named Augusta Ada Byron, but her surname changed after she married.
Her father was the brilliant, yet notorious poet Lord Byron (mad, bad and dangerous to know!) and her mother was Anne Isabella Milbanke. Her father was one of the greats of poetry, but his personality was unstable. Her mother was highly intelligent, had been well-educated by private tutors, and was particularly enthusiastic about mathematics and the sciences.
Ada's father abandoned his wife and daughter, leaving Britain forever when Ada was one month old. He died in Greece when Ada was eight years old. Ada never knew him.
Ada's mother, Lady Byron, seems to have had little or no affection for her daughter and had very little contact with her. The young girl was brought up by her maternal grandmother and servants. Her grandmother died when Ada was just seven years old, and Ada herself suffered long spells of poor health in both childhood and later.
One thing her mother insisted upon was that Ada get a high quality education.
In those days, there were no places for girls in the United Kingdom's universities.
However, girls from wealthy, aristocratic families could be educated to a high level by private tutors. And this is how Ada was educated.
Her mother wanted Ada to concentrate particularly hard on mathematics and science. She had two reasons for this:
These were her own favorite subjectsShe was worried that insanity ran in Ada's father's family and wanted her daughter to stay away from her father's interests, such as poetry
Lady Byron also ensured Ada had tuition in music and French, since musical ability and the ability to read and make conversation in French were socially desirable.
Her mother was very strict with Ada. In fact she seems to have been something of a tyrant, demanding that the young girl work very hard and punishing her with periods of isolation if she thought she had not worked hard enough. Lady Byron's desire was that her daughter would become a highly disciplined, serious person – the opposite of her father.
Ada Lovelace: Mathematician and Computer Scientist
It may seem odd to call someone born in 1815 a computer scientist, but that is what Ada Lovelace became.
Her life changed forever on June 5, 1833, when the 17 year-old girl met Charles Babbage. This was not something many girls Ada's age could ever do, but as an aristocrat she enjoyed better opportunities than most.
Babbage was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a position once held by and held more recently by Stephen Hawking.
Babbage learned that both Lady Byron and her daughter were knowledgeable about mathematics and invited them to see a small-scale version of the calculating machine he was working on called the difference engine.
Babbage had become fed up with people making mistakes in lengthy calculations, and his idea was to build an infallible steam-driven or hand-cranked calculating machine. Ada was completely captivated by the concept, but there was little she could do at the time to help Babbage with his work.
However, she sent a message to Babbage requesting copies of the machine's blueprints, because she was determined to understand how it worked.
Learning That You Can Talk to Machines
