🦗August 4.5🦗 (unfinished)

Ada Lovelace

100

Ada Lovelace has been called the first computer...

a. User

b. Programmer

c. Creator

b. Programmer

In 1848, Ada translates a French article about his second project, the "Analytical Engine", into English. She also provides her own comments on the text. Her annotations, simply called "notes", turn out to be three times as long as the actual transcript. They show that Ada recognizes the machine's potential beyond a device for numerical calculations. Since the functions of the Analytical Engine are not defined, they can also be applied to other things than numbers. The Analytical Engine, Ada writes 'holds a position wholly its own'. Her vision of a machine that could also process musical notes, letters and images, anticipates modern computers by a hundred years. In her now famous note "G", Lovelace also adds a step-by-step description for computation of Bernoulli numbers with Babbage's machine - basically an algorithm - which, in effect, make her the world's first computer programmer.

200

Ada Lovelace was the daughter of which Romantic poet?

Lord Byron! 

Ada Lovelace was born on 10 December 1815 in London, as Augusta Ada Byron, and was the only legitimate child of Lord George Gordon Byron and his wife Lady Annabella Byron.

Today considered one of Britain’s greatest Romantic poets, Lord Byron was infamous for his many affairs and dark moods. Though an unconventional match for the deeply religious and morally strict Annabella, in January 1815 they were married, with the young woman believing it her religious duty to guide the troubled poet to virtue.

300

True or False: Ada's mother encouraged her to pursue mathematics and science.

True!

Ada's mother was terrified she would turn out like her father. As a young girl, she was encouraged by her mother to pursue mathematics and science rather than the arts as her father had – fearing that it may lead her down a similar path of debauchery and madness.

She had her watched by close friends for any sign of moral deviation, and Lovelace termed these informants the ‘Furies’, later stating they exaggerated and falsified stories about her behaviour.

400

What was Ada Lovelace's mentor Charles Babbage known for?

He was known as the "father of the computer".

In 1833, Lovelace was introduced to Charles Babbage, a mathematician and inventor who soon became a mentor to the young girl. Babbage arranged her tuition in advanced mathematics by University of London professor Augustus de Morgan, and first introduced her to his various mathematical inventions.

These included the difference engine, which captivated Lovelace’s imagination when she was invited to view it under construction. The machine could automatically perform calculations, and was followed by plans for the more complex Analytical Engine. Both of these inventions have often earned Babbage the title as the ‘father of the computer’.

500

At age 12, Ada Lovelace was interested in mathematics and was attempting to build what without much success?

Hint: The Wright Brothers were successful in building them.

A flying machine!

When Ada Lovelace was twelve years old, she wanted to fly. She approached the problem methodically, examining birds and investigating various materials that could serve as wings—feathers, paper, silk. In the course of her research, which began in February, 1828, according to her biographer Betty Alexandra Toole, Ada wrote and illustrated a guide called “Flyology,” to record her findings. She toiled away on this project until her mother reprimanded her for neglecting her studies, which were meant to set her on a rational course, not a fanciful one.

Learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVkqYvsBUNE