Ada Lovelace in a contemporary painting, approx. 1840.

The mathematician Augusta Byron, nicknamed “Ada,” was born to an aristocratic family in London in 1815. Young Ada enjoyed a private scientific education, which her single mother made possible for her due to her own interest in mathematics. At the age of 12, Ada worked on the invention of a flying machine, without success. At age 17, she met the mathematician Charles Babbage, who was working on a proto-type of his difference engine. They conducted a long scientific correspondence to collaborate on this “analytical engine,” which, however, was never built. In 1835, Ada married William King, Earl of Lovelace, with whom she had three children. Lord King actively supported her scientific work. 

Ada Lovelace‘s notes on Luigi Menabrea‘s diagram of an algorithm for calculating Bernoulli‘s numbers. © Public domain

In 1843, Ada Lovelace translated an instruction manual for the engine that had been written by Italian mathematician Menabrea. She expanded the translation extensively with her own notes. These contained concepts far ahead of the research at that time. They included instruc-tions for calculating Bernoulli numbers and the very first machine algorithm for a calculating machine. Lovelace is therefore considered a pioneer of computer sci-ence and the world’s first programmer. The programming language Ada, devel-oped in 1980, was named after her.