Born on
December 10, 1815, Ada Augusta Byron had been the only the legitimate heir to
the famous poet Lord George Gordon Byron. As the marriage of Lord Byron to Lady
Anne Isabella Milbanke Byron- mother of Ada did not go happy, little Ada
lived separately with her mother.
Lady Anne guided Ada to learn Mathematics and Science unlike
any other mothers of that time. Society at that time did not want girls to
learn such challenging subjects. However it is said that Lady Anne wanted, Ada,
not to follow her father who had been emotional and tempered poet master.
Ada was fortunate enough to learn from famous personnel like
Williams Frend and Marry Somerville-one of first women to enter Royal
Astronomical Society.
Ada
married William king who later became ‘Earl of Lovelace’. And then she took the
title as ‘Countess of Lovelace’.
At the age of 17, she met Sir Charles Babbage. She was inspired
by his methods and discoveries especially the Analytical engine. Later she
published an article about the mechanism of Analytical Engine with her own
ideas included. The paper was published in 1843.
In her paper, she insisted on how to handle letters and
symbols or basically characters from numbers. Also she came up with a method to
repeat instructions which are called ‘looping’ at present.
The
thesis caught less attraction during her life. Ada died of Uterine Cancer in
November 27, 1852.
Ada Lovelace’s contribution to the field of programming was
not recognized until 1950’s.In 1953, when B.V.Bowden introduced her notes to
the public, she was recognized as the first female computer programmer. Even
Department of Defense, United States named a newly introduced programming
language as ‘Ada’ in the honor of her work.
Ada Augusta Lovelace aka ‘Enchantress of Numbers’ is a role
model in the world of computing.
Article By: Oshani Weerakoon
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