It seems absurd to think that the computer programming began in the 1800s. However, long before ENIAC, Harvard Mark I, Colossus, or any kind of computer was built, there lived a woman with an understanding of computing that was unmatched for the next century. In a time when barring women from schools was common practice, she saw further into the future than any of her counterparts, and her work foreshadowed modern computer science.
Born Augusta Ada Byron, the woman known as Ada Lovelace was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron. Young Ada received a strong grounding in mathematics; her tutor Augustus De Morgan was very impressed by Lovelace’s abilities. In his words, had she been a man, she could have likely become “an original mathematical investigator, perhaps of first-rate eminence.”
Yet, by the age of 18, Lovelace had overcome those obstacles and immersed herself in mathematics. One of her closest friends and colleagues was Charles Babbage, an inventor and engineer. When Babbage began work on a complex machine, the Analytical Engine, Lovelace worked right beside him. A general-purpose computing machine, it was designed to perform calculations of arbitrary complexity faster than humans and without error. It possessed many parts of a modern machine: an arithmetical unit, memory, conditional loops, and even punched cards, just like early computers built in the 1940s.
In 1842, a prominent mathematician named Luigi Menabrea published a paper about this Analytical Engine. Lovelace set out to translate the paper from its original French, a task common for female intellectuals at the time. Babbage asked her to expand on the original, given her deep understanding of the subject. Lovelace’s completed notes amounted to over twenty thousand words, almost three times longer than the original paper.
In her notes, Lovelace described a set of algorithms for the Analytical Engine to manipulate symbols and perform mathematical calculations, specifically to compute Bernoulli numbers. In Lovelace’s era, there was no concept of a machine beyond the automaton, whose clockwork did not permit new behavior. The Analytical Engine, on the other hand, could independently produce an answer based on inputs and programming, a revolutionary idea in computing, especially considering its time. The Analytical Engine, Lovelace proposed, could even create images or sounds, “[weaving] algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves,” an idea that many of her counterparts failed to grasp. Babbage himself stated that her notes were “entirely her own,” acknowledging her corrections of his mistakes. Thus, Ada Lovelace is known as the first computer programmer: the first person to publish a full set of instructions that a computing device could use to reach an original end result.
While the Analytical Engine was never built, Lovelace’s ideas impacted modern computing through Alan Turing, who pioneered the study of artificial intelligence. Working as a code breaker during World War II, Turing discovered Lovelace’s writings, which influenced his groundbreaking paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”. In her notes, she surmised that computers could not surprise humans, which Turing termed Lady Lovelace’s Objection. Turing acknowledged that “the Analytical Engine was a universal digital computer” capable of being programmed, and inferred that, given a century of technological developments, even Lovelace would not object to artificial intelligence.
Every October 15th, we mark Ada Lovelace Day, a celebration of women who have made important contributions to the fields of science and technology. Still, it is important to acknowledge her as the first computer programmer, not just the first that was female. Today, she is an inspiration to all women and computer scientists, a true visionary. Computer programming has impacted every facet of daily life, and Ada Lovelace was the first person to see its potential.