Although her life was short, she only lived 36 years, Augusta Ada Lovelace anticipated by more than a century most of what we think is brand-new computing. Her work with Charles Babbage and his Calculating Engines produced what she called "the plan". In hindsight what Ada had proposed was a program stored on punch cards for use on an early computer, The Analytical Engine in 1843
Inventor: Augusta Ada Lovelace
Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace image courtesy Criteria: First to invent. First to patent. First practical. Entrepreneur.
Birth: December 10, 1815 in London, England
Death: November 27, 1852 in London, England
Nationality: British
Invention: computer programming in 1843
Punch card deck courtesy www.ibm.com
Function: noun / computer program in punched cards
Definition: In computer science, a sequence of instructions that a computer can interpret and execute; "the program required several hundred lines of code"
Who Was Ada Lovelace?:
Ada Lovelace wrote a scientific paper in 1843 that anticipated the development of computer software, artificial intelligence and computer music. Daughter of the poet Lord Byron, Lady Ada Lovelace was known as the "enchantress of numbers" who collaborated with Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first mechanical thinking/calculating machine.
Ada Lovelace's Role In The History of Computers:
Ada Lovelace devised a method of using punchcards to calculate Bernoulli numbers, becoming the first computer programmer. In her honor the U.S. Department of Defense named its computer language "Ada" in 1980.
Ada Lovelace was born Augusta Ada Byron in December 1815 to the Romantic poet Lord George Gordon Byron. Her mother was Anne Isabella Milbanke, a mathematician known as “the princess of parallelograms.” Byron and Milbanke were separated five weeks after Ada Lovelace was born. At the time most women received a home education that was inferior to that of a man's. However, Ada's mother was able to provide her daughter with superior education that included science and math.
STORY:
Although her life was short, she only lived 36 years, Augusta Ada Lovelace anticipated by more than a century most of what we think is brand-new computing. Her work with Charles Babbage and his Calculating Engines produced what she called "the plan". In hindsight what Ada had proposed was a program stored on punch cards for use on an early computer, The Analytical Engine in 1843
Ada Byron Lovelace was a British mathematician and musician, born in London in 1815. Her father was the British poet, Lord Byron. Her mother, Annabella Milbanke, encouraged her to study mathematics. Ada married Lord William King, Earl of Lovelace, and had three children. She died of cancer in 1852 at the age of 36.
Ada Lovelace is best known as the first computer programmer. She wrote about Charles Babbage's "Analytical Engine" with such clarity and insight that her work became the premier text explaining the process now known as computer programming.
Lord George Gordon Byron and Annabella Milbanke Noel were married in 1815. She was the self-proclaimed "Princess of Parallelograms" and he was a popular poet. When his mood swings became too much for her to handle, Annabella left her husband. The union produced one child, Byron's only legitimate one, Augusta Ada Byron was born December 10, 1815.
On 25 April 1816 Lord Byron went abroad and Ada never saw her father again. Lord Byron never returned to England and died in Greece when Ada was eight years old. Lady Byron was given sole custody of her daughter Ada, who was declared a Ward in Chancery in April 1817, and she tried to do everything possible in bring up her child to ensure that she would not become a poet like her father.
Lady Byron considered mathematics a good subject for training the mind to ensure that her daughter took a disciplined approach. Music, Lady Byron believed, was a topic that provided a girl with the right social skills so this was also emphasised in Ada's education. However although Lady Byron devoted much energy to organise Ada's upbringing she herself seems to have spent very little time with her.
A number of tutors were employed, often for only a short period, to direct Ada's education. At age about six she had a Miss Lamont as a tutor and, despite her mother's emphasis on mathematics, Ada's favourite subject was geography while arithmetic she only studied reluctantly in order to please her mother. On discovering that Ada preferred geography to arithmetic, Lady Byron insisted that one of Ada's geography lessons be replaced by an arithmetic lesson and shortly after this Miss Lamont was replaced as Ada's tutor.
Ada's mathematical education was undertaken by a number of private tutors. William Frend, who had tutored Lady Byron in mathematics, was involved in Ada's mathematical education but by this time he was an old man who had not kept pace with mathematical developments. Dr William King was also engaged as a tutor to Ada in 1829 but his interest in mathematics was not very deep and he confessed that he had studied mathematics by reading it rather than by doing it.
Some members of the family feared that Lady Byron was insisting that her daughter be driven too hard. Lady Byron ignored the family concerns and kept a constant pressure on her daughter to work hard and long at her lessons. Some rewards were offered but pressure was usually applied by giving Ada punishments like solitary confinement, making her lie motionless, and demanding that she write apologies..
Few can have done more to mould the character of their child than Lady Byron did! The young Ada, however, had long suffered some health problems and in 1829 contracted a mysterious illness (possibly of hysterical or psychosomatic origin) and was unable to walk for almost three years. During this time, she pursued her studies with tutors. She excelled at mathematics and became an accomplished musician and linguist.
No comments:
Post a Comment