Ada Lovelace was born in 1815, and died in 1852 from cancer. Ada Lovelace was the daughter of a famous poet Lord Byron and Anabella Millbank, who also enjoyed math. Ada’s parents were divorced right after she was born and was never able to meet her estrange father. However, her father corresponded with her mother on her upbringing. Anabella Millbank, Ada’s mother, did not want her daughter to be a poet like her father and did everything possible, pushed Ada night and day, to learn mathematics. Even though Ada’s fond interests were elsewhere, her mother diminished those interests until Ada grew a fondness of math, by no choice of her own. At an early age Ada met with Charles Babbage in London, and with that Ada first learned of the Difference Engine. This is when Ada Lovelace’s eyes grew with enormous content, interest, and enthusiasm of the invention, which was later known as the Analytical Engine. In her twenties, Ada married her husband (several years her age) Earl William King and soon after, she bore three children. After having her children she became engrossed and focused on the formulation of the Analytical Engine, which took several years of extensive work, which she loved. Ada composed a “plan for how the engine might calculate Bernoulli numbers. This plan is now regarded as the first “computer program” (Larry Riddle, p. 1). Ada became ill and was diagnosed with cancer of the uterus and died at an early age, like her father, right after her accomplishments. Ada’s achievement was shown in her “notes” on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, which was finally acknowledged and “became reality in the 20th century computers which earned her a place in the history of mathematics and computer science” (Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, p. 6).
Ada Lovelace was born in London, England on December 10, 1815. She was the daughter of Anne Isabelle Milbanke and the poet Lord Byron. Her parents separated shortly after her birth and her father passed away when she was eight years old and she never knew him. Ada’s mother made sure that she was well educated in mathematics and music in an attempt to steer her away from poetry, as she did not want her to be like her father. It was clear very early on that Ada had a gift for mathematics when she came up with a design for a flying machine. At that time, Lady Byron and Ada were involved in the elite society in London that did not encourage women to become involved in pursuits involving science and math. She had a lifetime friend in a nobleman named Charles Babbage, who was a scientist, mathematician, and an inventor. The two kept up a correspondence in which they discussed mathematics, science, and invention. In 1835, Ada was married to William King and the two became Earl and Countess of Lovelace. The two had quite a large fortune that was mostly controlled by Ada, which was very unusual at the time. It seems that this says important things about her personality as well as her husband’s. Ada was quite ahead of her times it seems. Ada was taught by personal tutors found by her mother, so that she was taught what her mother, Annabelle, thought she should be taught and not much more. She was taught mathematics by tutor William Frend. He taught Ada the ways of math that he was taught and that he could remember. He had not kept up with the developments in math, so teaching her the most current math at that time was very limited. Dr William King also tutored her. Dr King taught her more by doing the actual math problems, not by just reading and studying math problems. At the age of 14, Ada became ill and continued her math studies being taught by tutors. Her continuing education enabled her to become an extinguished mathematician.
Ada in her mid-teen years, met a woman named Mary Somerville, who taught Ada math as well as the technology in the current context. In, 1834, Ada was told about Babbage’s idea of a calculating engine, the "Analytical Engine", which we know today as computer programming. This is how we all know about Ada today, the first woman to program a computer.
The most significant accomplishment in Ada Byron’s life is the above mentioned on her notes and translation of Charles Babbage’s, “Analytical Engine”, a machine that received instruction and numerical data from punched cards and could make and analyze mathematical calculations (BookRags, 2005). Ada’s interest in mathematical concepts led to a friendship and mentorship with Mr. Babbage. Charles Babbage introduced Ada to Augustus de Morgan, a professor of Mathematics at the University of London. With Augustus de Morgan’s guidance, Ada began to study higher levels of math. It is noted that her studies were compared to that of men who were receiving the same studies from Cambridge University. While she was doing her studies in math, her mentor Charles Babbage took the time to travel to Italy to give a presentation introducing his new invention, The Analytical Engine. At the presentation was a military engineer by the name of Luigi Frederico Manabea, who would later become the Prime Minister of Italy. Manabea was quite impressed by Babbage’s creation, and would later publish an article describing Babbage’s invention. Soon after, Ada would discover that article and from it decided to append a series of notes because she realized that the original article only described the mathematical concepts (BookRags, 2005). Ada’s writings provided a clear and concise explanation to Babbage’s invention. She provided illustration to how it would perform certain tasks. By doing this, Ada had created an algorithm that would later on become called by many as the world’s first computer program. Ada Lovelace was also toying with the idea of using a set of instructions that could be used again and again in a variety of contexts, this was the foundation for the worlds first subroutine. Her translation notes were published in 1843 and titled, “Sketch of The Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage, esq,.”. In 1953, after digital computing was very much becoming a part of reality, Byron’s notes were rediscovered. The notes appeared in a volume titled, “Faster than thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines” by B.Y. Bowden (BookRags, 2005). In 1974, the United States Defense department made the decision to standardize the computer operations by selecting one computer language for all its tasks. In 1980, the Ada Joint Program Office was created solely in introducing the ADA language. In 1983, the American National Standards Institute approved ADA as the standard computer language. It was given the code name; MIL-STD-1815 honoring her birth year. Many years after the passing of Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace did receive the public recognition she so aptly deserved. Becoming a mathematician is often a thankless job. It takes a special person to make it in the field of mathematics, and an even more extraordinary to make an impact in the field that affects the rest of the world. Growing up, children dream of becoming musicians, actors, fire fighter, police officers and dancers, but you never hear about someone wanting to grow up to be a mathematician. In Ada Lovelace’s case, the same desire occurs. Ada did not want to grow up being a mathematician; she was thrusted into the field by her mother. It is a good thing that her mother was so persistent too because where would we be today if could not enjoy the benefits of Ada Lovelace’s algorithm used to help build today’s modern society? Ada did not enjoy the benefits of standard schooling and was raised in a society that believed the role of women did not involve education and enlightenment. Ada defied society’s expectations and became an influential force in the field of mathematics. Ada’s influence was felt more than 100 years after her death. Her most influential involvement in the fields of mathematics is writing a method to calculate Bernoulli numbers on Babbage’s machine. A machine that was never built, but the method was used more than 100 years later when modern scientist and mathematicians used the method to help create computer programming. Ada Lovelace was a visionary, she had ideas about how the machine could be used that we still use to this day. What is more astounding is that she envisioned that the machine could be used for more than just adding number and finding sums, she envisioned that Babbage’s machine could even be used to compose complex music. Today’s society owes Ada Lovelace a lot. We enjoy computers, Ipods, cell phones and much more because she had the vision to see what Babbage’s machine could do, even though the machine had never been built. She had the imagination to see what could be and how it could be.