Ada Lovelace-The First Programmer

ADA Lovelace
-The first programmer!
-Ashita Naresh Agrawal
Roll No.-1101
CO2G

Childhood of Ada.
Ada was born on 10 December 1815.
She was the child of the poet George Gordon
Byron and his wife, Anne Isabella.
Byron along with the people close to him expected
his baby to be "the glorious boy"; as such they
were disappointed that his wife gave birth to a girl.
She was named after Byron's half-sister, Augusta
Leigh, and was called "Ada" by Byron himself.
Ada was often ill, beginning in early childhood.
At the age of eight, she experienced headaches
which obscured her vision.
In June 1829, she was paralyzed after a bout
of measles.
She was taught mathematics from an early age.

Teenage of Ada.
From 1832, when she was seventeen, her
remarkable mathematical abilities began to
emerge.
Her interest in mathematics dominated the
majority of her adult life.
In a letter to Lady Byron, De Morgan suggested
that her daughter's skill in mathematics could lead
her to become "an original mathematical
investigator, perhaps of first-rate eminence“.

Adult years of Ada
Ada developed a strong relationship with Mary Somerville(a
noted researcher and scientific author of the 19th century) who
introduced her to Charles Babbage on 5 June 1833.
She had a strong respect and affection for Somerville.
Throughout her life, Ada was strongly interested in scientific
developments and fads of the day,
including phrenology and mesmerism.
Even after her famous work with Babbage, Ada continued to
work on other projects.
In 1844, she would comment to a friend about her desire to create
a mathematical model for how the brain gives rise to thoughts
and nerves to feelings ("a calculus of the nervous system").

Family Background of Ada
On 8 July 1835 she married William King, 8th Baron
King, becoming Baroness King.
In 1838, her husband was created Earl of Lovelace.
Thus she was styled as “The Right Honourable the
Countess of Lovelace"
She was the daughter of George Gordon Byron and Anne Isabella.

Meet with Charles Babbage
Ada Lovelace met and corresponded with Charles Babbage on many occasions,
including socially and in relation to Babbage's Difference Engine and Analytical
Engine.
They first met through their mutual friend Mary Somerville.
Ada became fascinated with his Difference Engine and used her relationship with
Somerville to visit him as often as she could.
In later years, she became acquainted with Babbage’s Italian friend Fortunato
Prandi, an associate of revolutionaries.
Babbage was impressed by Ada's intellect and writing skills. He called her "The
Enchantress of Numbers".
In 1843 he wrote of her:
Forget this world and all its troubles and if
possible its multitudinous Charlatans – every thing
in short but the Enchantress of Numbers.

Charles Analytical Engine
During a nine-month period in 1842–43, Ada translated Italian
mathematician memoir on Babbage's newest proposed
machine, the Analytical Engine.
Explaining the Analytical Engine’s function was a difficult
task.
Ada’s notes had to even explain how the Engine differed from
the original Difference Engine.
The notes made by Ada included a method for calculating a
sequence of Bernoulli Numbers with the Engine, which would
have run correctly on the Analytical Engine been built.
Based on this work, Ada is now widely credited with being the
first computer programmer and her method is recognised as
the world's first computer program.

Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine

Death of Ada
Ada Lovelace died at the age of thirty-six, on 27
November 1852, from uterine cancer probably
exacerbated by bloodletting by her physicians.
The illness lasted several months.
She was buried, at her request, next to her father at
the Church of St. Mary
Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottingham.

First Computer Program
In 1953, over one hundred years after her death, Ada's
notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine were republished.
The engine has now been recognized as an early model
for a computer and Ada's notes as a description of a
computer and software.
Ada's notes were labelled alphabetically from A to G.
In note G, she describes an algorithm for the analytical
engine to compute Bernoulli numbers.
It is considered the first algorithm ever specifically
tailored for implementation on a computer, and Ada is
often cited as the first computer programmer for this
reason; however, the engine was not completed during
Lovelace's lifetime.

Conceptual leap in Ada’s notes
In her notes, Lovelace emphasized the difference between the Analytical
Engine and previous calculating machines, particularly its ability to be
programmed to solve problems of any complexity.
Lovelace realized that the potential of the device extended far beyond mere
number crunching.
She wrote:
[The Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects
found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the
abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of
adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine...
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.
This analysis was a conceptual leap from previous ideas about the capabilities of
computing devices, and foreshadowed the capabilities and implications of the
modern computer.

Some Achievements of Ada
The computer language Ada, created on behalf of the United
States Department of Defence, was named after Ada Lovelace.
The reference manual for the language was approved on 10
December 1980, and the Department of Defence Military
Standard for the language, "MIL-STD-1815", was given the
number of the year of her birth.
Since 1998, the British Computer Society has awarded
a medal in her name and in 2008 initiated an annual
competition for women students of computer science.
The village computer centre in the village of Porlock, near
where Ada Lovelace lived, is named after her.
There is a building in the small town of Kirkby-in-
Ashfield, Nottinghamshire named "Ada Lovelace House".
"Ada Lovelace Day" is an annual event celebrated in mid-
October

Ada Lovelace-The First Programmer

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