Posts Tagged ‘lord byron’

ADA

The World’s First Programmer

COUNTESS ADA LOVELACE — Birthdate December 10, 1815

Some of you may have seen this tribute in my Newsletter, but it bears repeating. Here’s another excellent biography.

I have usually come down on the NURTURE side of the Nature vs Nurture argument. But Ada’s life gives me pause.

Not to pare it down too much, but the simple story goes: Ada’s mother was married briefly to the poet Lord Byron. In hindsight, Byron is thought to have been bipolar; he was “unstable” and died, in debt, at 36. Ada’s mother tried to protect her daughter from such a life and steered her away from a literary life and toward mathematics. The plan worked when we think of Ada’s great contribution to the early days of “computing” — but she was addicted to drugs, an inveterate gamble, and died, in debt, at 36.

There is so much more to her life and especially to her brilliance at developing the equations that made Babbage’s “analytic engine” workable. She deserves a Day of her own, Ada Lovelace Day, the second Tuesday of October, every year.