Augusta Ada King, countess of Lovelace, nee Lady Byron, was an English
mathematician often credited as the first computer programmer for her writings
about Charles Babbage 'sAnalytical Engine . She was born in 1815, in Middlesex
(now part of London) and died in London in 1852.
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| What is Augusta Ada King, countess of Lovelace (Ada Lovelace, Lady Byron) |
Ada, as she was called, was the daughter of the famous poet, Lord Byron and
Annabella Milbanke Byron, who was, herself, an accomplished mathematician. Ada
was rigorously trained in the arts and sciences by a succession of tutors, and
through self-education. She married William King, 8th Baron King, in 1835 and
became countess of Lovelace in 1838 when her husband was made an earl.
Ada had met Babbage when she was still in her teens and asked him to serve as
her tutor several years later. While translating Luigi Menabrea's Elements of
Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine from its original French, the countess
contributed so many annotations that the result was three times the length of
the original manuscript. In her annotations, Ada described a method by which the
Analytical Engine could be made to compute Bernoulli numbers, which is why she's
been called the first programmer.
Because her parents separated when she was an infant, and her father
subsequently left the country, Ada did not have a personal relationship with
Lord Byron. Nevertheless, she seems to have inherited something of his poetic
sensibility along with her mother's mathematical talent. Among the countess'
additions were such comments as "...the Analytical Engine weaves algebraic
patterns, just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves."
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