Intrepid Engine

Who is Ada Lovelace?

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace was born on 10th December 1815, the only child of Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella. Born Augusta Ada Byron, but now known simply as Ada Lovelace, she wrote the world’s first computer programmes for the Analytical Engine, a general-purpose machine that Charles Babbage had invented.

Ada had been taught mathematics from a very young age by her mother and met Babbage in 1833. Ten years later she translated Luigi Menabrea’s memoir on Babbage’s Analytical Engine, appending notes that included a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the machine – the first computer programme. The calculations were never carried out, as the machine was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

Understanding that computers could do a lot more than just crunch numbers, Ada suggested that the Analytical Engine “might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.” She never had the chance to fully explore the possibilities of either Babbage’s inventions or her own understanding of computing. She died, aged only 36, on 27th November 1852, of cancer and bloodletting by her physicians.

Here’s a more informal depiction of the life of Lady Ada Lovelace.

What is Ada Lovelace Day all about? Well, according the the site FindingAda.com:

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging (videologging, podcasting, comic drawing etc.!) to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science.

Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines, whatever they do. It doesn’t matter how new or old your blog is, what gender you are, what language you blog in, or what you normally blog about – everyone is invited. Just sign the pledge below (click ‘pledge’ after you have completed the reCaptcha) and publish your blog post any time on Wednesday 24th March 2010.

As my contribution, I would like to proffer the life of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, one of the first ‘Human Computers’, that is, one who computes with their brain, not with a machine. From Wikipedia:

Henrietta Swan Leavitt (July 4, 1868 – December 12, 1921) was an American astronomer. A graduate of Radcliffe College, Leavitt went to work in 1893 at the Harvard College Observatory in a menial capacity as a “computer”, assigned to count images on photographic plates. Study of the plates led Leavitt to propound a groundbreaking theory, worked out while she labored as a $10.50-a-week assistant, that was the basis for the pivotal work of astronomer Edwin Hubble. Leavitt’s discovery of the period-luminosity relation of Cepheid variables radically changed the theory of modern astronomy, an accomplishment for which she received almost no recognition during her lifetime.

Please, go and find out more about this remarkable woman, and be kind enough as to post your own example of women in technology to your own blog.