April 23, 2025 • 23 mins
Ezra Wade tells the remarkable story of Ada Lovelace, the 19th-century mathematician who wrote the world's first computer algorithm a century before computers existed. Born to the infamous poet Lord Byron and raised by a mathematics-obsessed mother, Lovelace's unique "poetical science" perspective allowed her to envision computing possibilities that even Charles Babbage couldn't imagine, including computer-generated music and art.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
If I asked you to picture a computer programmer, what
image pops into your head. Maybe it's a guy in
a hoodie hunched over a keyboard in a dark room
surrounded by empty energy drink cans. Or perhaps a team
of professionals in an open concept tech office with standing
desks and too many houseplants. Whatever you're imagining, I'm willing
to bet it's not a nineteenth century English countess in
(00:32):
a corset and petticoats doing math by candlelight while her
aristocratic contemporaries were busy attending balls and managing country estates.
But that's exactly who created the world's first computer program,
over a century before computers even existed. Welcome to Eureka Moments.
I'm Ezra Wade. This is the show where we explore
the brilliant, stubborn, and often peculiar minds that changed our
(00:56):
world forever. Today we're diving into the story of Ada,
lovely mathematician, visionary and quite possibly the most interesting person
at every party she ever attended. Now, before we get
to Ada herself, we need to talk about her famous father,
Because like it or not, in nineteenth century England, who
your father was determined an awful lot about your life.
(01:18):
Ada's father was none other than Lord Byron. Yes that
Lord Byron, the rockstar poet of the Romantic era, who
was mad, bad, and dangerous to know. According to one
of his many lovers, Byron was essentially the nineteenth century
equivalent of a celebrity who's constantly in the tabloids for
scandalous behavior. He slept with everyone, ran up enormous debts,
(01:42):
possibly had incestuous relationships with his half sister, and had
such a dramatic personality that the term byronic hero was
coined to describe the brooding, rebellious characters he both wrote
about and embodied. But little Ada never knew him. Her
parents' marriage imploded when she was just five weeks old,
and her mother, Annabella Millbank, took the baby and fled.
(02:06):
Byron left England forever four months later, eventually dying of
disease in Greece when Ada was eight. He never saw
his daughter again after their separation. Ada's mother, Lady Byron,
was Byron's polar opposite, mathematical, rigidly logical, and so straight
laced that Lord Byron nicknamed her the Princess of parallelograms.
(02:29):
Traumatized by her brief, disastrous marriage to the volatile poet,
Lady Byron became determined that her daughter would never follow
in her father's footsteps. Her strategy mathematics, Lots and lots
of mathematics. Lady Byron arranged for Ada to be tutored
in math and science from an early age, believing these
subjects would suppress any dangerous poetic tendencies Ada might have
(02:52):
inherited from her father. It was the early nineteenth century
version of making your kid take extra calculus classes to
make sure they don't run off and join a rock band.
Did it work well, Yes, and no. Ada didn't become
a poet, but the mathematical education her mother forced on
her ended up unleashing something else entirely, a mind capable
(03:15):
of seeing possibilities that wouldn't become reality for another one
hundred years. Ada showed mathematical talent from early childhood, but
her education wasn't easy. Like many bright young women throughout history,
she faced significant obstacles. She experienced various childhood illnesses, including
a bout of measles that left her partially paralyzed for
(03:35):
nearly a year when she was fourteen. During her long recovery,
she continued studying, developing the kind of intense focus and
patience that would later serve her mathematical work. It's worth
pausing here to emphasize just how unusual AIDA's education was
for a woman of her time. In early nineteenth century England,
women weren't supposed to pursue serious intellectual work, especially in
(03:57):
fields like mathematics. Upper class women were expected to learn
enough to be decorative and conversational, a bit of drawing, music,
perhaps some French and Italian, but differential calculus, analytical geometry.
These were considered not just unnecessary, but potentially harmful to
the delicate female constitution. There were actual medical theories suggesting
(04:22):
that too much intellectual exertion could damage women's reproductive organs.
I'm not making this up. Some physicians genuinely believed that
blood would be diverted from the uterus to the brain
if women studied too hard, causing all sorts of problems.
This was the world Ada was navigating, one where her
very interest in mathematics was seen as strange at best
(04:44):
and dangerous at worst. And yet, thanks to her mother's
unconventional educational plans and their privileged social position. Ada received
the kind of mathematical training normally reserved for young men
headed to Cambridge. Her primary tutor during her teenage years
was August Morgan, a prominent mathematician and logician. In his
(05:04):
correspondence with Lady Byron about Ada's progress, he noted that
her grasp of mathematical concepts was exceptional. In one letter,
he wrote that if Ada had been a man, she
would have had the potential to become an original mathematical investigator,
perhaps of first rate eminence. That phrase, if she had
(05:25):
been a man hangs over Ada's entire story. It's the
ghost of what might have been in a more equitable world,
but also a testament to what she managed to achieve
despite the limitations placed on her. AIDA's entree into London's
scientific circles came in eighteen thirty three, when she was
just seventeen. Her mother arranged for her to attend a
demonstration of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, a mechanical calculator designed
(05:50):
to produce mathematical tables automatically eliminating the human errors that
plagued hand calculated tables used in navigation, engineering and banking.
Imagine the scene A drawing room full of London's intellectual
elite gathered to watch Babbage demonstrate a machine that looked
like a steampunk sculpture, all brass gears and levers, clicking
(06:12):
and worrying as it solved polynomial equations. Most of the
observers were probably thinking, well, isn't that clever? But Ada
saw something more. According to contemporary accounts, she immediately grasped
not just what the machine was doing, but what it
represented a new relationship between human thought and mechanical processes. Babbage,
(06:35):
for his part, was impressed by the teenager's understanding of
his work. He was forty two at the time, already
established as a prominent mathematician and mechanical innovator. Ada and
Babbage began a correspondence that would evolve into one of
the most important intellectual partnerships in computing history. Now, Charles
Babbage himself deserves a moment of our attention, because he's
(06:56):
a fascinating character in his own right. Babbage was brilliant,
but notoriously difficult, impatient with those who couldn't keep up
with his ideas, easily distracted by new projects, and perpetually
frustrated by the limitations of nineteenth century engineering and the
chronic underfunding of his work. He also really, really hated
(07:17):
street musicians, no seriously. He waged a decade's long campaign
against organ grinders and other street performers, claiming they disrupted
his concentration. He once calculated that twenty five percent of
his working potential had been destroyed by street music. The
man literally wrote a book called Observations on Street Nuisances
and lobbied Parliament for stricter regulations. If Babbage were alive today,
(07:42):
he'd be the neighbor filing noise complaints when your party
goes five minutes past ten pm. Despite these eccentricities, Babbage's
contributions to computing were revolutionary. After creating the difference Engine,
he conceived of something far more ambitious, the analytical Engine.
While the difference engine was essentially a calculator for specific functions,
(08:04):
the analytical engine was a true general purpose computer design,
incorporating an arithmetic logic unit, control flow, with conditional branching
and memory, not the basic components of modern computers. The
key thing to understand is that the analytical engine was
never actually built during Babbage's lifetime. The technology simply didn't
exist to create such a complex machine with the precision required.
(08:28):
It remained a conceptual design outlined in diagrams and descriptions
that Babbage continuously refined. This is important because it means
Ada wasn't programming a physical machine. She was working with
an abstract concept, making her insights even more remarkable. By
this point, Ada's life had taken a conventional turn in
(08:49):
some respecs. In eighteen thirty five, she married William King,
who later became the Earl of Lovelace, making her the
Countess of Lovelace, hence the name we know her by today.
She had three children in quick succession and managed the
demands of being an aristocratic wife and mother. But she
never abandoned her intellectual pursuits, continuing her mathematical studies through
(09:12):
correspondence courses and private tutoring. In eighteen forty two, Babbage
gave a seminar about the analytical engine in Tour in Italy.
An Italian engineer named Luigi Menebrea wrote a paper about
the machine in French. Ada was asked to translate this
paper into English for a British scientific journal, but she
did much more than translate she expanded the original text considerably,
(09:35):
adding her own notes and insights. These notes ended up
being three times longer than the original article. This is
where Ada made her most significant contribution to computing history.
In Note G of her translation, she described an algorithm
for calculating Bernoulli numbers using the analytical Engine, essentially writing
(09:56):
the world's first computer program. She created t showing how
the algorithm would work, tracing the operations step by step,
just as a modern programmer might trace the execution of code.
But Ada's vision went far beyond this single algorithm. She
understood something that even Babbage himself hadn't fully grasped. That
(10:17):
the analytical Engine wasn't just a fancy calculator for numbers,
but a machine that could manipulate symbols according to rules.
In other words, she saw that computing could be applied
to more than just mathematics. Here's the money quote from
her notes, the passage that has earned her a place
in computing history. The analytical engine weaves algebraic patterns, just
(10:39):
as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves. The reference
to the Jackuard loom is significant. This was an automated
weaving machine controlled by punched cards that could create complex
patterns and fabric Ada recognized the parallel between how these
cards instructed the loom to create visual patterns and how
the analytical engine and could be instructed to create mathematical patterns.
(11:03):
But she took the insight further, writing, the analytical engine
might act upon other things besides number. Supposing, for instance,
that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science
of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such
expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific
pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.
(11:28):
This is extraordinary. In eighteen forty three, at A. Lovelace
was essentially describing what we now call computer generated music.
She understood that if you could represent something symbolically, whether numbers,
musical notes, or any other kind of information, a properly
programmed computer could manipulate it according to rules. This insight
(11:51):
that computers could process symbols of any kind, not just numbers,
is fundamental to our modern understanding of computing. Ada was
describing computational creativity a century and a half before aiar
generators and algorithmic composition. Became reality. That's like someone in
the eighteen sixties accurately describing how social media would work. Actually,
(12:15):
it's even more impressive because at least telegraph technology existed
in the eighteen sixties. Ada was conceptualizing computational processes without
any existing technology to build upon. We need to pause
here to address a controversy that's dogged AIDA's legacy. Some
historians have questioned how much of this work was truly
hers versus Babbage's. Didn't she just elaborate on his ideas,
(12:40):
wasn't she merely his protegee, or even as some particularly
dismissive accounts have suggested, just a wealthy patron who attached
her name to his work. Let's set the record straight.
We have extensive correspondence between Aida and Babbage during the
period when she was writing her notes. These letters show
them going back back and forth on mathematical points, with
(13:02):
Ada often pushing back against Babbage's suggestions and defending her
own interpretations. In one letter, Babbage acknowledges that Aida spotted
an error in his calculations that he had missed. In others,
we see her asking penetrating questions that force Babbage to
clarify his thinking. The question of the algorithm itself the
program for calculating Bernoulli numbers, is particularly important. Babbage had
(13:27):
worked out several example operations for the analytical Engine, but
he had never published a complete, step by step algorithm
like the one Ada created. Her algorithm wasn't just a
transcription of his work. It represented a new level of
detailed methodical planning for computational operations. Most significantly, the conceptual
(13:48):
leap to understanding the engine as a symbol manipulating device
rather than just a calculator. The insight about computing, music,
and other non mathematical content appears to be uniquely Ada's
contrab Babbage saw his machine primarily as a mathematical tool.
Ada saw it as something much broader, what we would
now recognize as a general purpose computer. So while she
(14:12):
and Babbage were certainly collaborators and he provided the original design,
she was working with, the evidence strongly suggests that AIDA's
most significant insights were her own. She wasn't just Babbage's
mouthpiece or assistant. She was a mathematical thinker who made
original contributions to the nascent field of computing. In a
journal entry from this period, Ada wrote, I believe myself
(14:35):
to possess a most singular combination of qualities exactly fitted
to make me pre eminently a discoverer of the hidden
realities of nature. This wasn't mere self aggrandizement. Ada recognized
that her unusual education had given her a prospective few
others shared. She described her approach as poetical science, suggesting
(14:57):
that she saw her father's poetic imagination and her mother's
mathematical rigidity not as opposed forces, but as complementary modes
of understanding the world. She had escaped her mother's attempt
to excize the byronic elements from her personality and instead
integrated them with her mathematical training. This integration of imaginative
(15:18):
and analytical thinking is precisely what made Ada's contribution to
computing so significant. She could both master the technical details
of an algorithm and envision applications Babbage himself hadn't considered
in modern terms. She combined the skills of a programmer
with the vision of a tech entrepreneur, seeing both how
(15:38):
things worked and what they could become. Unfortunately, Ada's scientific
career was short lived. In eighteen fifty two, at the
age of just thirty six, she died from uterine cancer,
the same age at which her father had died. Her
last years were marked by pain, treated with the limited
medical options of the time, laudanum, essentially opium, cannabis and
(16:01):
blood letting. None of these provided much relief, and the
side effects of the laudanum likely made her final months
even more difficult. Before her death, she wrote to Babbage
asking to be buried beside her father, whom she had
never known in life. Lady Byron, still controlling her daughter
even at the end, refused this request. Ada was instead
(16:22):
interred at the Byron family vault in Nottinghamshire. AIDA's work
on the analytical engine had little immediate impact. Babbage never
secured sufficient funding to build his machine, and without a
physical computer to run it on, AIDA's program remained theoretical.
Her notes were largely forgotten for nearly a century. Then,
in the nineteen forties, as the first electronic computers were
(16:44):
being developed, historians rediscovered her work. Alan Turing, the British
mathematician and computer scientist who helped crack the German Enigma
code during World War II, referenced AIDA's notes in his
own groundbreaking papers on computing. Her vision of computers as
symbol manipulating machines rather than mere calculators, aligned perfectly with
(17:06):
the emerging understanding of computational theory. In nineteen eighty, the
US Department of Defense named a new programming language ADA
in her honor. The AUTO programming language was designed for
real time systems where reliability is critical, things like aircraft
control systems, banking networks, and space applications. It still used
(17:27):
today in aviation, rail transportation, and other areas where software
failures could have catastrophic consequences. Beyond this specific legacy, Ada's
broader vision that computers could handle not just numbers, but
any kind of symbolically represented information has been thoroughly vindicated
by the development of modern computing. When you use your
(17:50):
computer to create music, manipulate images, or process text, you're
fulfilling Ada's prediction about the analytical engine's potential to work
with other things besides number. There's something profoundly moving about
AIDA's story. She never saw her ideas implemented. She died
believing her work might have been for nothing, as Babbage's
(18:12):
machines remained unrealized, and yet a century later, her insights
helped shape the digital revolution that has transformed human society.
If that's not intellectual immortality, I don't know what is.
But there's also something troubling about AIDA's story. How many
other mathematical minds like hers never had the opportunity to
(18:33):
develop because of societal constraints. Aida had extraordinary privileges, wealth,
social position, an unusual mother who prioritized her education despite
social norms, and access to leading thinkers like Babbage and
de Morgan. Even with these advantages, she faced significant limitations
as a woman in Victorian England. How many potential Adas
(18:55):
throughout history never had the chance to develop their talents
at all. This question because especially pointed when we consider
the gender imbalance in computer science and programming today. In
a historical irony that would probably make Ada roll her eyes, programming,
a field pioneered by a woman, has become predominantly male.
(19:16):
In the early days of electronic computing, programming was often
considered women's work because it was seen as similar to
secretarial tasks or telephone switchboard operation. The hardware was the
prestigious part, the software was secondary. But as programming became
recognized as complex, creative, and lucrative, men pushed women out,
(19:36):
a pattern we've seen in other fields as they gain status.
The good news is that awareness of AIDA's contributions, along
with those of other female computing pioneers like Grace Hopper
and the women who programmed ni Act during World War II,
has grown significantly in recent decades. Ada Lovelace Day, celebrated
(19:56):
annually on the second Tuesday of October, promotes the achieved
of women in STEM fields and encourages girls to pursue
science and technology careers. In many ways, Ada Lovelace embodied
what we now recognize as computational thinking before there were
computers to think with. She understood abstraction, the ability to
(20:16):
model complex processes in simpler terms. She mastered algorithmic thinking,
creating step by step procedures to solve problems. She practiced decomposition,
breaking large problems into smaller, manageable parts. And she engaged
in pattern recognition, identifying similarities across different contexts, like seeing
(20:37):
the connection between a loom weaving patterns in fabric and
a machine manipulating mathematical symbols. These cognitive skills, which we
now try to teach students as fundamental to computer science education,
came naturally to Ada. She didn't just envision what computers
could do. She thought like a computer before computers existed.
(20:59):
There's a lesson here about the value of interdisciplinary thinking.
AIDA's blending of mathematics with more imaginative, poetical perspectives gave
her insights that more narrowly trained minds missed. In her
own words, if you can't give me poetry, can't you
give me poetical science. This interdisciplinary approach remains valuable today,
(21:22):
as some of the most interesting developments happen at the
boundaries between fields, where computer science meets biology, where engineering
meets art, where data analysis meets social science. There's also
a lesson about the long arc of innovation. The gap
between AIDA's algorithmic work in eighteen forty three and the
first functioning computers in the nineteen forties reminds us that
(21:44):
transformative ideas often require time, sometimes generations, to be fully realized.
The seeds of innovation may lie dormant until the right
conditions allow them to grow. Aida never saw her ideas implemented,
yet they found their moment century later. Perhaps most importantly,
Ada's story reminds us that technology isn't just about machines
(22:07):
and code. It's about vision. The most important question isn't
how does it work? But what could this become. Ada's
greatness lay not just in understanding Babbage's designs, but in
seeing possibilities beyond what even their creator envisioned. The next
time you use your computer for something creative, composing music,
(22:30):
manipulating images, writing stories, you're realizing Ada's vision of machines
that can work with anything that can be subjected to
a definite set of rules. When you see AI systems
generating art or music, remember that Ada Lovelace anticipated this
possibility in eighteen forty three. And when you hear about
(22:50):
the latest breakthrough in computing, consider that somewhere right now,
another ATA might be conceptualizing ideas that won't be fully
realized for decades to come. That's the power of genuine visionaries.
They don't just predict the future, they create conceptual frameworks
that make new futures possible. Ada Lovelace didn't just envision
(23:11):
computers as we know them today. She helped us understand
what they could be, and in doing so, she showed
us something about human potential as well. That the mind
can leap beyond the constraints of its time, creating ripples
that continue long after its physical existence has ended. I'm
Ezra Wade, and this has been Eureka moments. Remember that
the next big breakthrough might not come from where you expect.
(23:34):
It could emerge from the intersection of disciplines, from the
margins rather than the center, or from someone who isn't
supposed to be in the room at all. Keep your
eyes open for the ada lovelaces of today. They're probably
already imagining the world will be living in a century
from now. Quiet, please dot ai hear what matters.
If I asked you to picture a computer programmer, what
image pops into your head. Maybe it's a guy in
a hoodie hunched over a keyboard in a dark room
surrounded by empty energy drink cans. Or perhaps a team
of professionals in an open concept tech office with standing
desks and too many houseplants. Whatever you're imagining, I'm willing
to bet it's not a nineteenth century English countess in
(00:32):
a corset and petticoats doing math by candlelight while her
aristocratic contemporaries were busy attending balls and managing country estates.
But that's exactly who created the world's first computer program,
over a century before computers even existed. Welcome to Eureka Moments.
I'm Ezra Wade. This is the show where we explore
the brilliant, stubborn, and often peculiar minds that changed our
(00:56):
world forever. Today we're diving into the story of Ada,
lovely mathematician, visionary and quite possibly the most interesting person
at every party she ever attended. Now, before we get
to Ada herself, we need to talk about her famous father,
Because like it or not, in nineteenth century England, who
your father was determined an awful lot about your life.
(01:18):
Ada's father was none other than Lord Byron. Yes that
Lord Byron, the rockstar poet of the Romantic era, who
was mad, bad, and dangerous to know. According to one
of his many lovers, Byron was essentially the nineteenth century
equivalent of a celebrity who's constantly in the tabloids for
scandalous behavior. He slept with everyone, ran up enormous debts,
(01:42):
possibly had incestuous relationships with his half sister, and had
such a dramatic personality that the term byronic hero was
coined to describe the brooding, rebellious characters he both wrote
about and embodied. But little Ada never knew him. Her
parents' marriage imploded when she was just five weeks old,
and her mother, Annabella Millbank, took the baby and fled.
(02:06):
Byron left England forever four months later, eventually dying of
disease in Greece when Ada was eight. He never saw
his daughter again after their separation. Ada's mother, Lady Byron,
was Byron's polar opposite, mathematical, rigidly logical, and so straight
laced that Lord Byron nicknamed her the Princess of parallelograms.
(02:29):
Traumatized by her brief, disastrous marriage to the volatile poet,
Lady Byron became determined that her daughter would never follow
in her father's footsteps. Her strategy mathematics, Lots and lots
of mathematics. Lady Byron arranged for Ada to be tutored
in math and science from an early age, believing these
subjects would suppress any dangerous poetic tendencies Ada might have
(02:52):
inherited from her father. It was the early nineteenth century
version of making your kid take extra calculus classes to
make sure they don't run off and join a rock band.
Did it work well, Yes, and no. Ada didn't become
a poet, but the mathematical education her mother forced on
her ended up unleashing something else entirely, a mind capable
(03:15):
of seeing possibilities that wouldn't become reality for another one
hundred years. Ada showed mathematical talent from early childhood, but
her education wasn't easy. Like many bright young women throughout history,
she faced significant obstacles. She experienced various childhood illnesses, including
a bout of measles that left her partially paralyzed for
(03:35):
nearly a year when she was fourteen. During her long recovery,
she continued studying, developing the kind of intense focus and
patience that would later serve her mathematical work. It's worth
pausing here to emphasize just how unusual AIDA's education was
for a woman of her time. In early nineteenth century England,
women weren't supposed to pursue serious intellectual work, especially in
(03:57):
fields like mathematics. Upper class women were expected to learn
enough to be decorative and conversational, a bit of drawing, music,
perhaps some French and Italian, but differential calculus, analytical geometry.
These were considered not just unnecessary, but potentially harmful to
the delicate female constitution. There were actual medical theories suggesting
(04:22):
that too much intellectual exertion could damage women's reproductive organs.
I'm not making this up. Some physicians genuinely believed that
blood would be diverted from the uterus to the brain
if women studied too hard, causing all sorts of problems.
This was the world Ada was navigating, one where her
very interest in mathematics was seen as strange at best
(04:44):
and dangerous at worst. And yet, thanks to her mother's
unconventional educational plans and their privileged social position. Ada received
the kind of mathematical training normally reserved for young men
headed to Cambridge. Her primary tutor during her teenage years
was August Morgan, a prominent mathematician and logician. In his
(05:04):
correspondence with Lady Byron about Ada's progress, he noted that
her grasp of mathematical concepts was exceptional. In one letter,
he wrote that if Ada had been a man, she
would have had the potential to become an original mathematical investigator,
perhaps of first rate eminence. That phrase, if she had
(05:25):
been a man hangs over Ada's entire story. It's the
ghost of what might have been in a more equitable world,
but also a testament to what she managed to achieve
despite the limitations placed on her. AIDA's entree into London's
scientific circles came in eighteen thirty three, when she was
just seventeen. Her mother arranged for her to attend a
demonstration of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, a mechanical calculator designed
(05:50):
to produce mathematical tables automatically eliminating the human errors that
plagued hand calculated tables used in navigation, engineering and banking.
Imagine the scene A drawing room full of London's intellectual
elite gathered to watch Babbage demonstrate a machine that looked
like a steampunk sculpture, all brass gears and levers, clicking
(06:12):
and worrying as it solved polynomial equations. Most of the
observers were probably thinking, well, isn't that clever? But Ada
saw something more. According to contemporary accounts, she immediately grasped
not just what the machine was doing, but what it
represented a new relationship between human thought and mechanical processes. Babbage,
(06:35):
for his part, was impressed by the teenager's understanding of
his work. He was forty two at the time, already
established as a prominent mathematician and mechanical innovator. Ada and
Babbage began a correspondence that would evolve into one of
the most important intellectual partnerships in computing history. Now, Charles
Babbage himself deserves a moment of our attention, because he's
(06:56):
a fascinating character in his own right. Babbage was brilliant,
but notoriously difficult, impatient with those who couldn't keep up
with his ideas, easily distracted by new projects, and perpetually
frustrated by the limitations of nineteenth century engineering and the
chronic underfunding of his work. He also really, really hated
(07:17):
street musicians, no seriously. He waged a decade's long campaign
against organ grinders and other street performers, claiming they disrupted
his concentration. He once calculated that twenty five percent of
his working potential had been destroyed by street music. The
man literally wrote a book called Observations on Street Nuisances
and lobbied Parliament for stricter regulations. If Babbage were alive today,
(07:42):
he'd be the neighbor filing noise complaints when your party
goes five minutes past ten pm. Despite these eccentricities, Babbage's
contributions to computing were revolutionary. After creating the difference Engine,
he conceived of something far more ambitious, the analytical Engine.
While the difference engine was essentially a calculator for specific functions,
(08:04):
the analytical engine was a true general purpose computer design,
incorporating an arithmetic logic unit, control flow, with conditional branching
and memory, not the basic components of modern computers. The
key thing to understand is that the analytical engine was
never actually built during Babbage's lifetime. The technology simply didn't
exist to create such a complex machine with the precision required.
(08:28):
It remained a conceptual design outlined in diagrams and descriptions
that Babbage continuously refined. This is important because it means
Ada wasn't programming a physical machine. She was working with
an abstract concept, making her insights even more remarkable. By
this point, Ada's life had taken a conventional turn in
(08:49):
some respecs. In eighteen thirty five, she married William King,
who later became the Earl of Lovelace, making her the
Countess of Lovelace, hence the name we know her by today.
She had three children in quick succession and managed the
demands of being an aristocratic wife and mother. But she
never abandoned her intellectual pursuits, continuing her mathematical studies through
(09:12):
correspondence courses and private tutoring. In eighteen forty two, Babbage
gave a seminar about the analytical engine in Tour in Italy.
An Italian engineer named Luigi Menebrea wrote a paper about
the machine in French. Ada was asked to translate this
paper into English for a British scientific journal, but she
did much more than translate she expanded the original text considerably,
(09:35):
adding her own notes and insights. These notes ended up
being three times longer than the original article. This is
where Ada made her most significant contribution to computing history.
In Note G of her translation, she described an algorithm
for calculating Bernoulli numbers using the analytical Engine, essentially writing
(09:56):
the world's first computer program. She created t showing how
the algorithm would work, tracing the operations step by step,
just as a modern programmer might trace the execution of code.
But Ada's vision went far beyond this single algorithm. She
understood something that even Babbage himself hadn't fully grasped. That
(10:17):
the analytical Engine wasn't just a fancy calculator for numbers,
but a machine that could manipulate symbols according to rules.
In other words, she saw that computing could be applied
to more than just mathematics. Here's the money quote from
her notes, the passage that has earned her a place
in computing history. The analytical engine weaves algebraic patterns, just
(10:39):
as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves. The reference
to the Jackuard loom is significant. This was an automated
weaving machine controlled by punched cards that could create complex
patterns and fabric Ada recognized the parallel between how these
cards instructed the loom to create visual patterns and how
the analytical engine and could be instructed to create mathematical patterns.
(11:03):
But she took the insight further, writing, the analytical engine
might act upon other things besides number. Supposing, for instance,
that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science
of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such
expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific
pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.
(11:28):
This is extraordinary. In eighteen forty three, at A. Lovelace
was essentially describing what we now call computer generated music.
She understood that if you could represent something symbolically, whether numbers,
musical notes, or any other kind of information, a properly
programmed computer could manipulate it according to rules. This insight
(11:51):
that computers could process symbols of any kind, not just numbers,
is fundamental to our modern understanding of computing. Ada was
describing computational creativity a century and a half before aiar
generators and algorithmic composition. Became reality. That's like someone in
the eighteen sixties accurately describing how social media would work. Actually,
(12:15):
it's even more impressive because at least telegraph technology existed
in the eighteen sixties. Ada was conceptualizing computational processes without
any existing technology to build upon. We need to pause
here to address a controversy that's dogged AIDA's legacy. Some
historians have questioned how much of this work was truly
hers versus Babbage's. Didn't she just elaborate on his ideas,
(12:40):
wasn't she merely his protegee, or even as some particularly
dismissive accounts have suggested, just a wealthy patron who attached
her name to his work. Let's set the record straight.
We have extensive correspondence between Aida and Babbage during the
period when she was writing her notes. These letters show
them going back back and forth on mathematical points, with
(13:02):
Ada often pushing back against Babbage's suggestions and defending her
own interpretations. In one letter, Babbage acknowledges that Aida spotted
an error in his calculations that he had missed. In others,
we see her asking penetrating questions that force Babbage to
clarify his thinking. The question of the algorithm itself the
program for calculating Bernoulli numbers, is particularly important. Babbage had
(13:27):
worked out several example operations for the analytical Engine, but
he had never published a complete, step by step algorithm
like the one Ada created. Her algorithm wasn't just a
transcription of his work. It represented a new level of
detailed methodical planning for computational operations. Most significantly, the conceptual
(13:48):
leap to understanding the engine as a symbol manipulating device
rather than just a calculator. The insight about computing, music,
and other non mathematical content appears to be uniquely Ada's
contrab Babbage saw his machine primarily as a mathematical tool.
Ada saw it as something much broader, what we would
now recognize as a general purpose computer. So while she
(14:12):
and Babbage were certainly collaborators and he provided the original design,
she was working with, the evidence strongly suggests that AIDA's
most significant insights were her own. She wasn't just Babbage's
mouthpiece or assistant. She was a mathematical thinker who made
original contributions to the nascent field of computing. In a
journal entry from this period, Ada wrote, I believe myself
(14:35):
to possess a most singular combination of qualities exactly fitted
to make me pre eminently a discoverer of the hidden
realities of nature. This wasn't mere self aggrandizement. Ada recognized
that her unusual education had given her a prospective few
others shared. She described her approach as poetical science, suggesting
(14:57):
that she saw her father's poetic imagination and her mother's
mathematical rigidity not as opposed forces, but as complementary modes
of understanding the world. She had escaped her mother's attempt
to excize the byronic elements from her personality and instead
integrated them with her mathematical training. This integration of imaginative
(15:18):
and analytical thinking is precisely what made Ada's contribution to
computing so significant. She could both master the technical details
of an algorithm and envision applications Babbage himself hadn't considered
in modern terms. She combined the skills of a programmer
with the vision of a tech entrepreneur, seeing both how
(15:38):
things worked and what they could become. Unfortunately, Ada's scientific
career was short lived. In eighteen fifty two, at the
age of just thirty six, she died from uterine cancer,
the same age at which her father had died. Her
last years were marked by pain, treated with the limited
medical options of the time, laudanum, essentially opium, cannabis and
(16:01):
blood letting. None of these provided much relief, and the
side effects of the laudanum likely made her final months
even more difficult. Before her death, she wrote to Babbage
asking to be buried beside her father, whom she had
never known in life. Lady Byron, still controlling her daughter
even at the end, refused this request. Ada was instead
(16:22):
interred at the Byron family vault in Nottinghamshire. AIDA's work
on the analytical engine had little immediate impact. Babbage never
secured sufficient funding to build his machine, and without a
physical computer to run it on, AIDA's program remained theoretical.
Her notes were largely forgotten for nearly a century. Then,
in the nineteen forties, as the first electronic computers were
(16:44):
being developed, historians rediscovered her work. Alan Turing, the British
mathematician and computer scientist who helped crack the German Enigma
code during World War II, referenced AIDA's notes in his
own groundbreaking papers on computing. Her vision of computers as
symbol manipulating machines rather than mere calculators, aligned perfectly with
(17:06):
the emerging understanding of computational theory. In nineteen eighty, the
US Department of Defense named a new programming language ADA
in her honor. The AUTO programming language was designed for
real time systems where reliability is critical, things like aircraft
control systems, banking networks, and space applications. It still used
(17:27):
today in aviation, rail transportation, and other areas where software
failures could have catastrophic consequences. Beyond this specific legacy, Ada's
broader vision that computers could handle not just numbers, but
any kind of symbolically represented information has been thoroughly vindicated
by the development of modern computing. When you use your
(17:50):
computer to create music, manipulate images, or process text, you're
fulfilling Ada's prediction about the analytical engine's potential to work
with other things besides number. There's something profoundly moving about
AIDA's story. She never saw her ideas implemented. She died
believing her work might have been for nothing, as Babbage's
(18:12):
machines remained unrealized, and yet a century later, her insights
helped shape the digital revolution that has transformed human society.
If that's not intellectual immortality, I don't know what is.
But there's also something troubling about AIDA's story. How many
other mathematical minds like hers never had the opportunity to
(18:33):
develop because of societal constraints. Aida had extraordinary privileges, wealth,
social position, an unusual mother who prioritized her education despite
social norms, and access to leading thinkers like Babbage and
de Morgan. Even with these advantages, she faced significant limitations
as a woman in Victorian England. How many potential Adas
(18:55):
throughout history never had the chance to develop their talents
at all. This question because especially pointed when we consider
the gender imbalance in computer science and programming today. In
a historical irony that would probably make Ada roll her eyes, programming,
a field pioneered by a woman, has become predominantly male.
(19:16):
In the early days of electronic computing, programming was often
considered women's work because it was seen as similar to
secretarial tasks or telephone switchboard operation. The hardware was the
prestigious part, the software was secondary. But as programming became
recognized as complex, creative, and lucrative, men pushed women out,
(19:36):
a pattern we've seen in other fields as they gain status.
The good news is that awareness of AIDA's contributions, along
with those of other female computing pioneers like Grace Hopper
and the women who programmed ni Act during World War II,
has grown significantly in recent decades. Ada Lovelace Day, celebrated
(19:56):
annually on the second Tuesday of October, promotes the achieved
of women in STEM fields and encourages girls to pursue
science and technology careers. In many ways, Ada Lovelace embodied
what we now recognize as computational thinking before there were
computers to think with. She understood abstraction, the ability to
(20:16):
model complex processes in simpler terms. She mastered algorithmic thinking,
creating step by step procedures to solve problems. She practiced decomposition,
breaking large problems into smaller, manageable parts. And she engaged
in pattern recognition, identifying similarities across different contexts, like seeing
(20:37):
the connection between a loom weaving patterns in fabric and
a machine manipulating mathematical symbols. These cognitive skills, which we
now try to teach students as fundamental to computer science education,
came naturally to Ada. She didn't just envision what computers
could do. She thought like a computer before computers existed.
(20:59):
There's a lesson here about the value of interdisciplinary thinking.
AIDA's blending of mathematics with more imaginative, poetical perspectives gave
her insights that more narrowly trained minds missed. In her
own words, if you can't give me poetry, can't you
give me poetical science. This interdisciplinary approach remains valuable today,
(21:22):
as some of the most interesting developments happen at the
boundaries between fields, where computer science meets biology, where engineering
meets art, where data analysis meets social science. There's also
a lesson about the long arc of innovation. The gap
between AIDA's algorithmic work in eighteen forty three and the
first functioning computers in the nineteen forties reminds us that
(21:44):
transformative ideas often require time, sometimes generations, to be fully realized.
The seeds of innovation may lie dormant until the right
conditions allow them to grow. Aida never saw her ideas implemented,
yet they found their moment century later. Perhaps most importantly,
Ada's story reminds us that technology isn't just about machines
(22:07):
and code. It's about vision. The most important question isn't
how does it work? But what could this become. Ada's
greatness lay not just in understanding Babbage's designs, but in
seeing possibilities beyond what even their creator envisioned. The next
time you use your computer for something creative, composing music,
(22:30):
manipulating images, writing stories, you're realizing Ada's vision of machines
that can work with anything that can be subjected to
a definite set of rules. When you see AI systems
generating art or music, remember that Ada Lovelace anticipated this
possibility in eighteen forty three. And when you hear about
(22:50):
the latest breakthrough in computing, consider that somewhere right now,
another ATA might be conceptualizing ideas that won't be fully
realized for decades to come. That's the power of genuine visionaries.
They don't just predict the future, they create conceptual frameworks
that make new futures possible. Ada Lovelace didn't just envision
(23:11):
computers as we know them today. She helped us understand
what they could be, and in doing so, she showed
us something about human potential as well. That the mind
can leap beyond the constraints of its time, creating ripples
that continue long after its physical existence has ended. I'm
Ezra Wade, and this has been Eureka moments. Remember that
the next big breakthrough might not come from where you expect.
(23:34):
It could emerge from the intersection of disciplines, from the
margins rather than the center, or from someone who isn't
supposed to be in the room at all. Keep your
eyes open for the ada lovelaces of today. They're probably
already imagining the world will be living in a century
from now. Quiet, please dot ai hear what matters.
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