Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) was an English mathematician and writer whose notes on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine described a method for computing Bernoulli numbers.

Analytical Engine: A proposed mechanical general-purpose computer designed by Charles Babbage in the nineteenth century. Lovelace’s notes explained how this machine could manipulate numbers according to instructions.
Computer programming: The design and expression of instructions that computers execute to perform tasks. Her Engine notes are often discussed in histories of programming because they specify machine operations.
Mary Somerville: A Scottish science writer and mathematician who helped introduce Lovelace to Babbage’s work. Somerville’s intellectual mentorship and connections helped bring Lovelace into Babbage’s circle.
Sketch of the Analytical Engine: Luigi Federico Menabrea’s 1842 article describing Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Lovelace translated this article before expanding it with her own notes.
Bernoulli numbers: A sequence of rational numbers that appears in sums of powers and other areas of mathematics. Her published procedure for the Engine calculated a sequence of these numbers.
General-purpose computing: Computing in which one machine can perform different tasks by following different instructions. Lovelace emphasized that the Engine’s operations could extend beyond a single fixed calculation.
Charles Wheatstone: An English scientist and inventor known for work on telegraphy, optics, and musical instruments. Wheatstone introduced Lovelace to Babbage, helping begin their consequential collaboration.
1843 translation of Menabrea’s memoir: Ada Lovelace’s English translation of Menabrea’s account of the Analytical Engine, published in 1843. The translation was the publication that carried her extensive commentary into print.
Charles Babbage: An English mathematician and inventor who designed mechanical calculating machines, including the Analytical Engine. Lovelace developed her account of the Engine through her intellectual collaboration with its designer.
Symbolic computation: The manipulation of symbols according to formal rules, rather than only the calculation of numerical quantities. Her remarks imagined the Engine operating on symbols such as musical notes if their relations were formalized.

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