Who was Ada Lovelace?

December 10th marked what would have been Ada Lovelace's 204th birthday! In honor of the occasion, the Center of Math blog is taking a look at the life of a pioneering mathematician, the world's first computer programmer!

Life of a Mathematician

Ada Lovelace was born Augusta Ada Byron on December 10, 1815. Her father was Lord Byron, the acclaimed poet. However, Lovelace didn't know her father - he left a few weeks after she was born before dying in Greece when Lovelace was 8 years old. Thus, her upbringing was mostly in the hands of her mother, Annabella Milbanke. At a time where women's education was limited, Lovelace was given a rigorous education for anyone in the 19th century. She was taught by private tutors, learning languages such as French and Latin, sciences, and mathematics. She was adept at math, and began to think about the world around her in a mathematical way. 

While attending a party at the age of 17, she met Charles Babbage, a mathematician and inventor, and the two struck up a friendship. Babbage, who has been called the father of the computer, served as Lovelace's mentor, and Lovelace translated works for Babbage. Shortly after meeting Babbage, Lovelace studied under Augustus de Morgan at the University of London. 

Mathematical Accomplishments

Being close friends with Babbage, one of the most prominent people working on computers at the time, Lovelace got to closely study the 'analytical engines' that were being developed. 

When an Italian engineer, Luigi Federico Menabrea, wrote an article about one of Babbage's creations for a Swiss journal, Babbage tasked Lovelace with translating it from French to English. Lovelace decided to do more than just translate the article - she also added her own mathematical notes to it! The final article was three times longer than the original!

Several of her notes formed the basis of computer science - which are still applied to this day! She was the first person to think of how codes of numbers and letters could make be used to make the analytical machines run. Her notes were so well thought out that she even wrote down a theory of how such code could repeat simple instructions, which is used today in a method called looping! 

Because computers were a new phenomenon at the time, Lovelace's pioneering thoughts weren't recognized widely during her lifetime. However, her work helped lay the groundwork for computer programming, which is heavily relied on today by billions of people around the world!