Ada Lovelace and Computing

SCIENCE STORIES

The

Eureka

Moment!

TM

Ada

Lovelace and Computing Written by

Illustrated by

Roger Canavan Annaliese Stoney

The

Eureka

Moment!

TM

Scientist profile .

velace Name: Ada Lo . th December, 1815 Date of birth: 10 . th November, 1852 Date of death: 27 ate tutoring Education: Priv . : ts en em ev Major achi eight of being the • Overcame the w brated poet daughter of a cele known for her (Lord Byron) to be . . ts en em ev hi ac n ow les d account of Char ile ta de a ed at sl an • Tr ench.. al Engine from Fr tic ly na A s e' ag bb Ba propose using the • Was the first to in a way that Analytical Engine . are used. modern computers . mputer program. co t rs fi e th d te ea • Cr ple for women to • Set a lasting exam . maths and science. pursue careers in

Published in Great Britain in MMXIX by Book House, an imprint of The Salariya Book Company Ltd 25 Marlborough Place, Brighton BN1 1UB www.salariya.com ISBN: 978-1-912904-04-4

© The Salariya Book Company Ltd MMXIX All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

135798642 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Author: Roger Canavan Illustrator: Annaliese Stoney Editor: Nick Pierce

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The

Eureka

! t n e Mom

TM

Ada

Lovelace and com puting

Written by

Illustrated by

Roger canavan Annaliese Stoney

T H E

E U R E K A

4

M O M E N T !

A D A

L O V E L A C E

n o i t c u d o r t In

T

hink of how much of the modern world depends on computers. They’re all around us — in smart phones and digital cameras, televisions, cars, planes and, of course, in the laptops and tablets

that we use every day. It’s hard to imagine life without them. And they seem to be products of the modern world: people fifty years ago wouldn’t know what they were.

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So it might come as a surprise to learn that the ideas for the first ‘modern computers’ were developed nearly 200 years ago. Not only that, but that it was a young woman who set down ideas that would blossom many decades later into working computers. What makes her achievement even more striking is how women were considered at the time. Poor women had to go out to work from a very young age and the rich were expected to do no more than look for good husbands. Education rarely played a part in any woman’s life.

The story of Ada Lovelace, the woman who did set down those ideas about computing, is remarkable in many ways. Perhaps it’s not surprising that she led such a fascinating life. After all, her parents were far from ordinary. Her father, Lord Byron, was an important poet and one of the most famous people in the world. Her mother,

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born Anne Isabella Milbanke, was an intelligent woman who did manage to receive a formal education, and wanted the same for her daughter.

Ada came from a wealthy family but her childhood was marked by illness and loneliness.

She devoted herself to studies — especially maths and science — from an early age and impressed tutors and professors who came to teach her.

And her friendship with Charles Babbage, a brilliant mathematician and inventor, opened the door for Ada to make her mark and to secure her lasting fame.

After studying Babbage’s plans for a machine that would perform difficult mathematical tasks, Ada wrote a detailed study of the machine’s possibilities. She went far beyond what most people — including Babbage himself — thought possible. Why stop with having a machine simply

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doing what you ask it to do? Couldn’t a machine be taught to read a code (like a language) so that it could learn to do things by itself ?

These are the very questions that modern computer developers still ask themselves. And each year they get closer to making Ada Lovelace’s dreams reality.

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