Lovelace was the daughter of famed poet Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke Byron, who legally separated two months after her birth. Her father then left Britain forever, and his daughter never knew him personally. She was educated privately by tutors and then self-educated but was helped in her advanced studies by mathematician-logician Augustus De Morgan, the first professor of mathematics at the University of London. On July 8, 1835, she married William King, 8th Baron King, and, when he was created an earl in 1838, she became Countess of Lovelace.
She was an 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. -Britannica
Babbage was credited with creating the first automatic digital computer, the “Analytical Engine.” An Italian engineer wrote an article about Babbage’s work in French and Babbage gave the article to Lovelace to translate. Not only did Lovelace translate the original French text to English, but she provided her own input, ultimately writing that the machine could be programmed to follow a list of instructions. She hypothesized this programming could work with other things besides numbers. The idea of a machine that could manipulate symbols according to rules marked the important transition from calculation to computation. Lovelace’s notes on the article’s comments were published in 1843 in an English science journal. She used “A.A.L.” (Augusta Ada Lovelace) as her name in the publication. Thanks to Lovelace’s insights, computers have developed over time in ways previously not considered possible. -Lemelson MIT
Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician and writer, is often referred to as “the first programmer” because she helped revolutionize the trajectory of the computer industry. She is considered the first person to recognize that computers had a much larger potential than mathematical calculation. In 1979, a computer language called “Ada,” made on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense, was even named after her.
Her contributions to technology weren’t known until a century after her death. The second Tuesday in October each year is now known as Ada Lovelace Day, where the contributions of women to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are honored. - Lemelson MIT
Throughout history, there have been many women who have greatly contributed to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). While names like Marie Curie and Florence Nightingale are familiar to most, there are so many ingenious others who may not be as familiar; women who were leaders in their fields, who made major discoveries, and whose work led to critical social and political change. The Library of Congress provides this excerpt and the list below.
Ada met Babbage in 1833 when she was just 17, and they began a voluminous correspondence on the topics of mathematics, logic, and ultimately all subjects. Babbage had made plans in 1834 for a new kind of calculating machine (although the Difference Engine was not finished), an Analytical Engine. His Parliamentary sponsors refused to support a second machine with the first unfinished, but Babbage found sympathy for his new project abroad. In 1842, an Italian mathematician, Louis Menebrea, published a memoir in French on the subject of the Analytical Engine. Babbage enlisted Ada as a translator for the memoir, and during a nine-month period in 1842-43, she worked feverishly on the article and a set of Notes she appended to it. These are the sources of her enduring fame.
Ada called herself "an Analyst (& Metaphysician)," and the combination was put to use in the Notes. She understood the plans for the device as well as Babbage but was better at articulating its promise. She rightly saw it as what we would call a general-purpose computer. It was suited for "developing and tabulating any function whatever. . . the engine is the material expression of any indefinite function of any degree of generality and complexity." Her Notes anticipate future developments, including computer-generated music. -San Diego Supercomputer Center
Lovelace continued to fall ill with breathing and digestive problems. She took months to recover after the birth of her second child and suffered rheumatic attacks.
Lovelace died from uterine cancer on November 27, 1852, and was buried next to her father’s grave. She was only 36 years old. -Lemelson MIT
