Ada Lovelace was actually born Augusta Ada Byron on December 10, 1815. She was the only legitimate child of famed poet Lord Byron, though Ada never had a relationship with him. Ada went on to marry William King, who became the Earl of Lovelace. This then gave Ada the title Countess of Lovelace. Ada Lovelace died November 27, 1852, at the age of 37, from cancer.
Ada's mother, who had mathematical training herself, insisted that her daughter receive tutoring in mathematics and music, "as disciplines to counter dangerous poetic tendencies" from her father. (www.sdsc.edu) This was a most unusual education for a woman at this time as the participation of noblewomen in intellectual pursuits was not widely encouraged. (Not that it's particularly encouraged 200 years later!) However, Ada and her mother were part of the elite London society, which gave Ada the opportunity to meet Charles Babbage at a party when she was 17.
(And here is where I start directly quoting other sources as I can't say it better!)
Charles Babbage, a professor of mathematics at Cambridge, was the "inventor of the Difference Engine, an elaborate calculating machine that operated by the method of finite differences".(www.sdsc.edu)
"Ada got a chance to look at the (Difference Engine) before it was finished, and was captivated by it. Babbage also created plans for another device known as the analytical engine, designed to handle more complex calculations.
"Ada was later asked to translate an article on Babbage's analytical engine that had been written by Italian engineer Luigi Federico Menabrea for a Swiss journal. She not only translated the original French text in English, but also added her own thoughts and ideas on the machine. Her notes ended up being three times longer than the original article. Her work was published in 1843, in an English science journal...
"In her notes, Ada described how codes could be created for the device to handle letters and symbols along with numbers. She also theorized a method for the engine to repeat a series of instructions, a process known as looping that computer programs use today." (www.biography.com)
"The Notes included the first published description of a stepwise sequence of operations for solving certain mathematical problems and Ada is often referred to as 'the first programmer'" (http://www.computerhistory.org)
"Perhaps more importantly, the article contained statements by Ada that from a modern perspective are visionary. She speculated that the Engine 'might act upon other things besides number... the Engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent'. The idea of a machine that could manipulate symbols in accordance with rules and that number could represent entities other than quantity mark the fundamental transition from calculation to computation. Ada was the first to explicitly articulate this notion and in this she appears to have seen further than Babbage. She has been referred to as 'prophet of the computer age'. Certainly she was the first to express the potential for computers outside mathematics." (http://www.computerhistory.org)
Overall, Ada "understood the plans for the device as well as Babbage but was better at articulating its promise." (www.sdsc.edu)
Truly amazing how a woman in the mid-1800s could already visualize all of the amazing things humans went on to do with computers, aside from just calculating mathematical equations. Especially considering that when I saw the commercial for the first iPhone, I thought it was as joke! There was no way you could do all that with a cell phone. Yet here we are.
Ada Lovelace has a computer language named after her (Ada), that was created on behalf of the United States Department of Defense. Also, "Ada Lovelace Day" is an annual event celebrated in mid-October whose goal is to "... raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths," and to "create new role models for girls and women" in these fields. I've never before heard of Ada Lovelace Day (we have all these events to inspire women, but they aren't well advertised!!) , but look forward to celebrating this year on October 11!
References:
http://www.biography.com/people/ada-lovelace-20825323
https://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/lovelace.html
http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/adalovelace/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace
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