User Tools

Site Tools


offtopic:ada_lovelace

Ada Lovelace

British mathematician. Full name: Augusta Ada Byron King. Born on December 10th of 1815, died (sadly too early) on November 27th 1852. Daughter of Lord Byron. In contact with Charles Babbage, inventor of the mechanical, programmable computer (known as “The Analytical Engine”). Translated Luigi Menabrea's description of the AE from French into English and added her own notes. Recognized that the AE would be able to do more than pure mathematics. Claimed that computers wouldn't be able to do analysis on their own, i.e. true AI would be impossible. Thought about software features like loops, sub functions and recursion.

The programming language Ada was named after her, natch. Whether she would have liked it, we don't know.


In AH works

  • The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
  • The Cusanus Game by Wolfgang Jeschke. Does the programming for the first working computer. In at least one universe, at least.
  • NSA by Andreas Eschbach. Because of her influence, programming is seen as a typical if not stereotypical feminine occupation.
offtopic/ada_lovelace.txt · Last modified: 2022/05/20 20:32 by max_sinister

Donate Powered by PHP Valid HTML5 Valid CSS Driven by DokuWiki