Women in Tech: Ada Lovelace, the development pioneer

A reference in the field of computer development, Ada Lovelace, a 19th century mathematician, was the originator of the first complete algorithm for programming the analytical machine, the ancestor of the computer. A look back at the career of an inspiring woman, at the forefront of feminism.

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The absence of a father

Ada Byron, who became Countess of Lovelace after her marriage, was born in 1815 in London. The daughter of a tumultuous marriage, her parents divorced when she was just one month old. Her childhood was marked by the absence of her father Lord George Byron, a famous English poet, who left the country and never saw his daughter again.

Her mother, Anne Isabella Milbanke, also known as Anne Byron, was a mathematician who lived in a very privileged environment. She placed great importance on the so-called "hard" sciences and wanted her daughter to be educated and surrounded by the greatest scholars of the time. This requirement is also motivated by the will that her daughter stays away from literature - her ex-husband's favorite field - and that she considers "dangerous".

A scholar at the forefront of feminism

Ada was therefore accompanied from an early age by brilliant tutors and preceptors, who made her a renowned scientist. It should be noted that this was an unusual path for the time. 

In 19th century Europe, women of the nobility were automatically excluded from scientific disciplines. Society considered them to be naturally inferior by virtue of their gender and therefore unsuitable. Thus, since mathematics and science were fields that required energy, rigour and determination, they were reserved exclusively for men. It was also frowned upon for women of the time to spend time in these fields.

Ada Lovelace x Charles Babbage, a fruitful collaboration

However, Ada proved to be passionate about her teaching and brilliant. Her successive tutors gradually integrate her into the scientific sphere.

It was through one of her teachers, Mary Somerville, that the 17-year-old Ada met Charles Babbage, a distinguished mathematician and professor at Cambridge University. This marked the beginning of a friendly relationship that was nurtured by letter exchanges in which the professor passed on his scientific knowledge.

Through this correspondence, Ada Lovelace closely followed the development of Babbage's innovative project: the analytical machine, which is a kind of programmable calculator that could be described as theancestor of the computer. Unlike the mechanical calculator (or difference machine) that he had already created a few years earlier, this one incorporated a technology, the punched cards - used in Jacquard's loom - that allowed instructions to be given and data to be integrated into the machine.

The young woman believes strongly in the potential of this project and thinks that it would be interesting to have a tool that could, instead of the human brain, manipulate numbers and other symbols. Nevertheless, she rejects the idea that the machine could take over from man, explaining that its role is not to create, but only to facilitate tasks that humans have already mastered.

Charles Babbage devoted much of his life to the design of this tool and Ada made a major contribution. Together they worked on the continuous improvement of the machine.

Birth of the first computer programme

It was in 1842, after a few years spent raising her children, that Ada Lovelace became known for her scientific work. 

At the request of the physicist Charles Wheatstone, she translated into English a research paper by an Italian mathematician describing Charles Babbage's analytical machine. 

What seemed to be a simple translation exercise turned out to be a real turning point in Ada Lovelace's career and, more broadly, in the world of science. She devoted almost a year to this translation, which she embellished, at the request of her friend Babbage, with her own notes and thoughts. Thus, she wrote seven notes -from A to G- completing the description of the tool made by the Italian mathematician Menebrea. 

This meticulous work of annotation turns out to be longer and more extensive than the original document. Indeed, Ada, slips in computer science characteristics: we find in particular under other names the concepts of input, output of data, as well as elements like the central unit or the memory allowing the storage of data. 

One note in particular will attract attention. The note G written by the mathematician, contains the first complete algorithm for programming the analytical machine and calculating Bernoulli numbers, a sequence of rational numbers calculated by recurrence.

As her work was of high quality and much more advanced than the original paper, Babbage considers this new document to be the reference. This makes Ada Lovelace the pioneer of computer programming.

The descent into hell

While one might imagine a series of successes following these advances, the Babbage-Lovelace duo struggled to find funding to move on to the next stage: the physical construction of the machine. 

Ada decides touse her skills in calculating probabilities for gam bling to raise money. She starts betting on horse races but soon gets into debt and ends up broke. 

The project fell through and neither of the two friends would see the analytical machine in their lifetime.

A mother of three children in poor health, Ada Lovelace died of uterine cancer in 1852 at the age of 36.

A lasting legacy

It was well over a century after her death that the notes written by Ada Lovelace were rediscovered by the scientific world, which was then looking into the development of the first computers. Finally recognised as the first female computer programmer, the American Department of Defence gave her the name of "Ada Lovelace" at the end of the 1970s, the name "Ada" has a computer languageIn the late 1970s, the U.S. Department of Defense gave Lovelace the title of "Computer Scientist" in her honour.

Her name then became a reference in the field of computer science, and since then there have been many events and artistic productions telling her story. A British journalist created an Ada Lovelace day which takes place every year on the second Tuesday of October. The aim of this day is to highlight women who contribute or have contributed to scientific research.

The Nocode also pays tribute to her. The no-code app creation tool Adalo was directly inspired by the pioneering computer scientist to make their brand embody her innovative spirit and invite a wide audience into computer creation.