Ada Lovelace
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Biography of Ada Lovelace
Early Years
Ada Loveless was born on December 10, 1815 in London, England. Ada's birth name is Augusta Ada Byron. She is the daughter of Romantic poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabelle Milbanke. The marriage between Lord Byron and Anne Milbanke was short and ended in separation a month after Ada was born. Four months later, Byron left England forever and Ada was never able to meet her father. Ada was raised by her mother, Lady Byron. She was a mathematician known as "the princess of parallelograms."
Ada was brought up very differently than other aristocratic girls in the mid-1800s. Her mother, Lady Byron did not want Ada to be a poet like her father so she saw to it that Ada received tutoring in mathematics and science, as distractions to poetic activity. Women at the time were not standard to engage in such studies but in doing so, Lovelace grew an aptitude for numbers and language.
Later years and the Analytical Engine
One of Ada's tutors was Mary Somerville, a well-known researcher and scientific author, who introduced her to Charles Babbage at the age of seventeen. Babbage was an inventor as well as a professor of mathematics at Cambridge. Also, he was the first person who had the idea for a programmable computer. During this time, he served as a mentor for Ada. Through Babbage, Ada began studying topics such as logic and advanced mathematics.
In 1835, Ada married William King and in 1838 when King inherited a noble title, they became the Earl and Countess of Lovelace and had three children.
During this time, Babbage was still a very important presence in Ada's life. It was his calculating machines that inspired Lovelace and led to her most famous contribute to computer science.
In 1842-43, Ada translated the work of an Italian mathematician, Luigi Menabrea, on Babbage's Analytical Engine. This Analytical Engine was an important step in the history of computers because it was the first ever design of an all-purpose computer. Although, Babbage worked on it for many years, the computer was never built until after his death in 1871. The engine was never built due to financial, political, and legal issues. On the other hand, the design of the machine was very modern. In reality, the first completed general-purpose computers that had such a design weren't anticipated for another 100 years.
When Ada translated the work of Luigi Menabrea, she included a set of notes, which specified a method for calculating certain numbers with the Analytical Engine. Again, historians have recognized it as the world's first computer program. In addition, Ada's brilliant mind saw possibilities in the engine that Babbage hadn't. For instance, she realized that the machine could compile pieces of music. Ultimately, some aviation and military services use the computer programming language 'Ada', which was named after Lovelace.
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