Best ada lovelace biography

Before we get to the books you’ve chosen about Ada Lovelace, I’d like to ask a couple of preliminary questions. There seems to be a huge range of views about Ada Lovelace’s importance as a mathematician and a computer scientist. What does her reputation as a mathematical genius rest and what has she or history left us to support that reputation?

Ada Lovelace, who was born in 1815 and died aged 36 in 1852, was famous in her lifetime for being the daughter of Annabella Milbanke and her estranged husband, Lord Byron, the wildly popular romantic poet.

Lovelace’s reputation today rests on a scientific paper that she published in 1843, which gave an account of Charles Babbage’s unbuilt analytical engine, a giant mechanical device, organised on the same principles as a modern electronic computer. The first third of the paper is a translation from an article written in French by Menabrea; the rest is original to Lovelace.

The paper is a clear, high-level account of the mathematical principles of the engine: Babbage never published anything of the kind himself, probably because he was too caught up in other activities. It contains a big table of formulae which is often called ‘the first computer programme’. Claiming ‘firsts’ for complex contemporary concepts is unhelpful and somewhat simplistic, and the table is not a ‘programme’ in the modern sense, though any modern programmer would understand the thinking behind it.

What really captures the attention today is that the paper also contains far-reaching speculation about what the engine might do­—like think for itself, or compose music—written in language that is strikingly accessible to the modern reader.

Lovelace’s paper was largely forgotten until the 1950s, when it, and Lovelace, were taken up by the nascent British computer industry eager to place a glamorous countess at the heart of a supposed origin story of British computing (the Bletchley Park origin story was still sec

(New York Public Library)

Ada Lovelace was born 200 years ago today. To some she is a great hero in the history of computing; to others an overestimated minor figure. I’ve been curious for a long time what the real story is. And in preparation for her bicentennial, I decided to try to solve what for me has always been the “mystery of Ada”.

It was much harder than I expected. Historians disagree. The personalities in the story are hard to read. The technology is difficult to understand. The whole story is entwined with the customs of 19th-century British high society. And there’s a surprising amount of misinformation and misinterpretation out there.

But after quite a bit of research—including going to see many original documents—I feel like I’ve finally gotten to know Ada Lovelace, and gotten a grasp on her story. In some ways it’s an ennobling and inspiring story; in some ways it’s frustrating and tragic.

It’s a complex story, and to understand it, we’ll have to start by going over quite a lot of facts and narrative.

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The Early Life of Ada

Let’s begin at the beginning. Ada Byron, as she was then called, was born in London on December 10, 1815 to recently married high-society parents. Her father, Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) was 27 years old, and had just achieved rock-star status in England for his poetry. Her mother, Annabella Milbanke, was a 23-year-old heiress committed to progressive causes, who inherited the title Baroness Wentworth. Her father said he gave her the name “Ada” because “It is short, ancient, vocalic”.

Ada’s parents were something of a study in opposites. Byron had a wild life—and became perhaps the top “bad boy” of the 19t

My thanks to Pen & Sword for a review copy of this book via NetGalley.

I first heard or rather read Ada Lovelace’s name way back in class V, where our introductory textbook on computers talked of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine (with I think a diagram of the machine) and of Lady Ada Lovelace who worked in connection with it. At that time, neither did I know that Ada Lovelace was Byron’s daughter, nor did I really understand the significance of her achievements especially in terms of a woman in her time working in the field of science and mathematics, but the name stuck in my mind and I got even more interested in her later on when I discovered these other things. But so far, I hadn’t really got a chance to read anything about her and my knowledge was fairly superficial. So, of course when I spotted this book, I immediately put in a request and was very pleased to get a chance to read the book.

In this short volume, author and historian Beverley Adams explores the life of this intelligent and complex woman, a romantic figure because of her connection with Byron and her early death, and for which reason she was also always closely watched, an imaginative and gifted young woman skilled in mathematics who made significant contributions, but also a woman who had a troubled emotional and personal life and went through many ups and downs. Beginning with some background of the Byron family, and Byron’s life and his toubled marriage with Annabelle, Adams takes us through Ada’s unusual childhood, which saw her under her mother’s strict control; her inventive mind and work with mathematics and Charles Babbage; her married life which was impacted by both the emotional scars of her childhood and perhaps the Byron personality; the scandals that came to be associated with her; her illness and death; and the legacy she left behind.

Annabelle’s troubled marriage with Byron translated to a very strict and controlled upbringing for Ada, so as to ens