ADA BYRON LOVELACE
By: Laura Curtis
March 27, 2007
Living almost one hundred years before the construction of the first computer, Ada Byron Lovelace is the first person known to have envisioned uses for computing beyond mere calculating, and to have had insight into its wider and more abstract applications.
Ada Byron was born in England, in 1815. She was raised by her mother, and received a thorough education, being instructed by a series of well-known tutors and scholars. When she was nineteen years old, Ada married William, Lord King. Soon thereafter, William was made 1st Earl of Lovelace, and thus, Ada became Lady Lovelace. Ada Lovelace had three children, and with child-care assistance from her mother, and the support of her husband, Lord Lovelace, she was able to devote much of her time to the study of mathematics. During the span of several months in 1843, Lovelace spent most of her waking hours envisioning and describing the operation of a machine that, although never actually constructed, has been described as the first computer. It was this work that earned her the description as the first computer programmer.
Childhood
Ada Lovelace’s mother, Annabella Milhouse, came from a wealthy family, and had studied astronomy, algebra, Latin and geometry. (Neuman, p. 94) As a teenager, Annabella was tutored in mathematics by William Frend, and pursued a course of study “similar to that of a Cambridge student.” (Toole, p. 3). Annabella was also morally upstanding and quite religious, and dedicated much of her life to doing good works for those who were less fortunate than she.
Lovelace’s father, George Gordon, Lord Byron, could not have been more different from Annabella. At the time of his marriage to Annabella, Byron was already a famous romantic poet, well-known for his “riotous escapades and outrageous behavior.” Byron’s father, who was known as “Mad Jack,” had been disowned by his father, who was known as “Foul Weather Jack.” Mad Jack’s wealthy first wife died young, and Mad Jack gambled away her fortune. His second wife, Catherine, was Byron’s mother, and was also an heiress. Mad Jack squandered her fortune, as well, and then died when Byron was three years old. (Wade, p. 11) Lord Byron continued in the footsteps of his ancestors, developing a reputation for womanizing and gambling.
Despite these vast differences in upbringing and personality, it appeared that there was true affection between Lovelace’s parents early in their relationship. Lord Byron admired Annabella’s intelligence and education, and during their courtship, he referred to Annabella as his “Princess of Parallelograms.”
Despite this romantic beginning, Ada Lovelace was the product of a marriage that was sensational, disastrous, and short. Her parents had been married for one year when she was born on December 10, 1815. One month later, her parents separated. Lovelace went with her mother to live with her mother’s parents, and Byron fled to Italy, and never saw his daughter again. He died in Greece when Lovelace was eight years old. This separation was scandalous; in nineteenth century England, it was unthinkable for a woman to leave her husband. Lady Byron, however, immediately dedicated herself to ensuring that everyone knew that she was the innocent party in the relationship. (Wade, p. 14)
Although she exerted much influence over Lovelace’s upbringing, Lady Byron did not actually provide much nurturing herself. She spent much of her time traveling, leaving Lovelace in the care of Lady Byron’s mother and a series of nannies. When Lovelace was two years old, she became ill with the chicken pox. Her mother, who was traveling at the time, delayed her return, writing, “It would be imprudent in me to return with any chance of taking the c. pox.” (Wade, p. 17)
Education
Lady Byron held the firm belief that morals and discipline should be instilled in her daughter through the study of mathematics. When she was thirteen years old, Lovelace began to study mathematics with Lady Byron’s former tutor, William Frend. She was soon studying at a level beyond his comprehension. Frend’s mathematical knowledge was quite out of date, and he refused to consider the concept of negative numbers, and believed that the concept of imaginary numbers “could only foster superstition.” (Wade, p. 35)
Lovelace also studied mathematics under Dr. William King, who wrote to Lovelace that “You will soon puzzle me in your studies.” Dr. King, however, may have been a good choice of tutor from Lady Byron’s viewpoint, since he wrote to Lovelace that since mathematics require “undivided attention” and “have no connection with the feelings of life,” they cannot possibly lead to any objectionable thoughts. (Baum, p. 29)
In 1833, when Lovelace was seventeen years old, she met Charles Babbage, who was then 42, and who would later become the central figure in Lovelace’s most pivotal work. She immediately became fascinated by his work designing calculating machines. She was very close in age to Babbage’s daughter, Georgiana, and after Georgiana’s death, the relationship between Lovelace and Babbage became similar to that of a father and daughter. (Collier & MacLachlan, p. 68)
Lovelace also studied under Mary Fairfax Sommerville, who was a highly esteemed mathematician at the time. When Sommerville was young, she resented the lack of educational opportunities that were available for women, and “thought it unjust to give women a desire for knowledge if it were wrong to acquire it.” She studied mathematics in private, from books obtained secretly for her by her brother’s tutor. She hid her studies from her father, who thought that the study of mathematics was harmful for girls. (Wade, p. 51) As an adult, Sommerville was the first woman elected to the Royal Society, England’s most famous scientific organization, however, as a woman, she was not allowed to attend the society’s meetings.
With Sommerville and her daughters, Lovelace was able to attend scientific lectures and demonstrations, and learn about new inventions. By 1834, both Somerville and Babbage were mentors for Lovelace, who was then eighteen years old. After meeting Babbage, Lovelace’s mathematical education began to focus on what she needed to know in order to better understand Babbage’s Difference and Analytical Engines. (Fuegi & Francis, p. 17)
Family Life
In 1835, Ada Lovelace met William, Lord King, who had been a college classmate of Mary Sommerville’s son. After a short engagement, they married, when Ada was nineteen years old. William became the Earl of Lovelace three years later, and thus, Ada became the Countess of Lovelace. The Lovelaces’ three children, Byron, Annabella and Ralph, were born within the first four years of the Lovelaces’ marriage. Although Lovelace loved her children, her letters to her mother show that she resented their claims on her time. She writes, “I am not naturally or originally fond of children... & tho’ I wished for heirs, certainly never have desired a child.” (Wade, p. 60)
Lovelace wished to return to her study of mathematics, and both her mother and her husband were supportive of this desire. Lovelace’s mother took care of the children, surprisingly, since she had, for the most part, left the care of her own daughter to others. Lord Lovelace cared for the family’s country home, while Ada Lovelace resided in London to pursue her studies. In 1940, she began studying under Augustus De Morgan, a professor at the University of London. He was impressed by her mathematical ability, but felt that a woman’s intense pursuit of mathematics would cause a woman’s delicate nervous system to break down.
Lovelace began to renew her acquaintance with Charles Babbage, and in 1841, the Lovelaces invited him to visit them at their country home. During this visit, Ada Lovelace tried to convince him to allow her to assist him in the creation of his Analytical Engine. (Wade, p. 66)
Charles Babbage and the Engines
Charles Babbage was born in London in 1791. As a child, he was fascinated by mechanical toys, and would take them apart to see how they worked. He did well in school and studied mathematics at Trinity College in Cambridge. In 1815, he was elected into the British Royal Society.
Around 1821, Babbage conceived the idea of using the technology from the newly developed steam engine to construct a machine with the ability to quickly and accurately construct tables of powers, logarithms and trigonometric functions. During this time, these tables were constructed by hand, and often contained errors.
Babbage received a sizeable grant from the British government in 1823 to begin constructing his Difference Engine. The Engine would have 25,000 moving parts, would be able to handle up to twenty decimal places, and would be able to print its own results. (Henderson, p. 6) By 1833, having spent a considerable amount of his own money, in addition to the grant, he had constructed only a small prototype of the Difference Engine. (This prototype, which is fully functioning, is on display at the Science Museum in London.) (Fuegi & Francis, p. 17) The work was slowed by the fact that the workers were unaccustomed to the precision that was required, and had to invent new tools and techniques as they went along. At one point, a member of the House of Commons suggested mockingly that the engine should be set to calculate the time at which it would finally be of any use. (Baum, p. 5) Eventually the work on the Difference Engine came to a halt, as Babbage shifted his focus to his next endeavor.
In 1833 Babbage began creating a much more complex machine, called the Analytical Engine, and had completed the basic design by 1938. Like the Difference Engine, the Analytical Engine was to be constructed with many axes containing toothed wheels, but it was to be much more complex, and was in many ways similar to the computers of today. (Katz, p. 837) The Engine consisted of a store, which was where variables were kept until they were processed, and a mill, where various operations were performed. To control the operations, the Engine used a series of punched cards. These cards were similar to the cards designed by Joseph Jacquard to be used in a weaving loom. The Jacquard loom used a series of punched cards to automate the process of weaving intricate patterns in fabric, by holding together sets of threads to be used in the pattern. In the Analytical Engine, the cards allowed the machine to change direction mid-calculation, depending on the partial answer obtained. Some cards determined the operations to be performed, and other cards represented variables. Once the Engine had been properly programmed, it would be able to work with any set of cards. In describing this process, Lovelace writes, “the Analytic Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.” (Collier & MacLachlan, p. 68)
The Notes
In October 1842, Babbage made a presentation on his Analytical Engine at a meeting in Turin, Italy. One of the participants, L. F. Menabrea, wrote an article summarizing the technical aspects of the Engine. It was published in French, in a Swiss journal. Lovelace translated the article into English, and showed it to Babbage in early 1843. When Babbage asked why she had not written an original article herself, she replied that she had not considered it. Babbage then suggested that she add Notes to the article, which she did. The resulting Notes were forty pages, twice as long as the article itself, and were Lovelace’s sole publication. The Notes were published in Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs in 1843.
The writing of the Notes was not an easy task. Babbage was a prolific note-taker. At the time of his death, he had filled thirty volumes with notes regarding his plans for the Analytic Engine. Lovelace was to synthesize Babbage’s notes in a way that scientists and mathematicians could understand the technicalities of the Engine, and government officials could grasp the potential value of the Engine. (Toole, p. 195)
In addition to a detailed description of the operation of the Engine, Lovelace’s Notes included a passionate plea for government assistance in financing the work, and perhaps most importantly, they included descriptions of some of the advanced and abstract uses that were possible for the Engine, going beyond the mere number crunching that had been envisioned by Babbage. Lovelace anticipated that the Engine, or similar machines, would be able to create music, and would have the ability to do repetitions and loops, and change course in the middle of a calculation. (Baum, p. 94)
The Notes were divided into seven sections, lettered A through G. They were not organized in any particular way, and did not attempt to give a complete explanation of the Engine. (Wade, p. 73) The first Note begins with a description of the type of calculations that could be performed by the Difference Engine, and an explanation of how much more advanced and powerful the Analytical Engine would be. She appeals for government assistance, when she states what a shame it would be if “some other nation or government” should realize the project and jeopardize “the honour of our country’s reputation in the future pages of history.” (Baum, p. 72)
The Notes also contained what is often referred to as the first computer program, which described the method the Engine would use to compute the Bernoulli numbers, which have no easily recognizable sequence pattern. The final page contains a diagram showing where the calculations would be set on the Engine, and where the results would be displayed. Many years later, Babbage claimed to have created the diagram himself, but Lovelace’s letters show that she took the information and formulas he supplied, and used them to create the diagram. (Wade, p. 87)
Unfortunately, two months after the translation and the Notes were published, the English government notified Babbage that they would be unable to provide any additional funding for his work. The Analytical Engine was never built, and Babbage spent the rest of his career working with other models of his calculating machine. (Wade, p. 92)