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Here's a lesser known fact I wished to share with you and what better day than today. Why? Read on to find out.
Have you ever thought about the first programmer ever?
Ada Lovelace was born to the renowned poet Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke Byron. Their marriage didn't last long and Ada parted from her father at a very young age. To get rid of the 'fatal' mental tendencies of Ada's father, her mother emphasized arts like music, French, and the cognitive study of mathematics on Ada. The last one fascinated the young girl.
In 1833, Ada met the mathematician Chalres Babbage. Yes, the Charles Babbage who is considered "father of the computer". He had deveoloped a design for a machine with similar functions to a calculator and named it the 'Difference Engine'. Ada was motivated and felt very inspired with this revolutionary machine. She became Babbage's friend for life.
He had an ideation of a new project, a much more complex and modernized one- the Analytical Engine. In 1843, Ada translated a French paper that Luigi Menabrea (an Italian mathematician) had written about the above project. She even added her own notes to the renewed papers. She noticed that the new machine could carry out slightly more complicated mathematical operations. One example she mentioned was how to calculate Bernoulli numbers- this is now recognized by many as the first computer program ever written. She analysed that the Analytical Engine could carry out operations on "other things besides numbers", like musical notes.
Unfortunately, only a fragment of the Analytical Engine was built when Ada Lovelace died in 1852. Her effort however, was awarded as she passed on her name to the Ada Programming Language . Annually, the second tuesday of October is now celebrated as Ada Lovelace Day to appreciate women's contribution to STEM(Science Technology Engineering Mathematics).
Share with others to help them recognize her efforts too.
Happy Women's Day:)