Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician who worked closely with Charles Babbage on his proposed Analytical Engine, a mechanical general-purpose computer that was never completed in his lifetime. Translating an Italian engineer article on the machine in 1843, she added her own extensive notes, roughly three times the length of the original text, including what is now recognized as the first algorithm published with the explicit intention of being carried out by a machine, a method for the engine to compute Bernoulli numbers, generally called Note G. Her notes went further than Babbage own writing in describing the engine as capable of manipulating symbols according to rules, not merely calculating numbers, which she illustrated with the idea of the engine one day composing music, a vision of general-purpose computing that took more than a century to become literal fact.
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Ada Lovelace
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Did Ada Lovelace write the first computer program?
It is often claimed. Note G is often called the first published program, but Babbage wrote earlier ones.
It is often said, but the record is more qualified. The method in her Note G for calculating Bernoulli numbers on the Analytical Engine is often called the first published computer program. Charles Babbage's personal notes from 1837 to 1840 contain the first programs for the engine, and all but one of the programs cited in her notes had been prepared by Babbage three to seven years earlier. Her distinct achievement lies in the published notes and their vision of what the machine could do.
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Lovelace's 1843 translated notes on the Analytical Engine, three times longer than the paper they annotated, included what is recognized as the first published algorithm written for any computing machine.
Source Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica editors
In Field
Software engineering did not exist as a named discipline in her lifetime. She is linked here as the field own recognized precursor, for Note G and its accompanying description of a machine that manipulates symbols by rule.
Source Adas Algorithm: How Lord Byrons Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital AgeJames Essinger
Invented
Her 1843 translated notes on Charles Babbage's unbuilt design, three times longer than the paper they annotated, included what is recognized as the first published algorithm written for any computing machine.
Source Analytical Engine (Wikipedia)
Long-Form Articles
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Nationality
Also in Geography Atlas: the nationality of this subject.
Sources
1. Adas Algorithm: How Lord Byrons Daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age
James Essinger, Melville House, 2014
Ada Lovelace (Wikipedia)
First published computer program section
the algorithm in Note G is often called the first published computer program
In Group: Software and Programming Pioneers, Introduction
Lovelace is often considered the first computer programmer.
View the SourceEncyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.Associated With: The Analytical EngineView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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