Ada Lovelace, "The Enchantress of Numbers"

Augusta Ada Gordon King, countess of Lovelace (born 10 December 1815)

Ada Lovelace, as she is now most commonly remembered, was the daughter of George Gordon, lord Byron, and his wife, Anne Isabella Milbanke. The poet and his new bride were famously ill-matched, their marriage nothing short of a disaster. After a year, the pair separated in January 1816, just a month after their daughter's birth (Byron seems to have been positive the baby would be a boy). Byron left England four months later and never saw his daughter again.

An 1836 painting of
Augusta Ada Gordon King,
by Margaret Sarah Carpenter

Ada's upbringing was shaped--or perhaps marred--by her mother's intense fear that her daughter would in any way resemble her father. Convinced that Byron was not only immoral but insane, Annabella Milbanke devised a plan of education for her Ada that would eliminate the dangerous effects of poetry and focus, instead, on mathematics, logic, and science.

Ada proved an apt pupil. (One of her correspondents and mentors was the mathematician and scientist Mary Fairfax Somerville--who was nominated to the Royal Academy of Science at the same time as Caroline Herschel and for whom Somerville College [Oxford] is named).

Ada also developed an ongoing partnership with the mathematician Charles Babbage, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge and inventor of the difference machine, a complex calculating device. They had begun their correspondence in 1833, when she was just seventeen. 

On 8 July 1835, when she was nineteen years old, Ada married William King, 8th Baron King (he later inherited the Lovelace title). She gave birth to three children, but in addition to her domestic life, she continued with her mathematical studies. Her working relationship with Babbage continued and developed after her marriage and the birth of her children. It is her work with Babbage and his later and more complex calculator, the Analytical Engine. that has drawn the most attention to Ada Lovelace. (It was Babbage who called Ada the "enchantress of numbers.")

At Babbage's request, Ada Lovelace translated an article on the Analytical Engine by the Italian engineer and mathematician Federico Luigi Menabrea, with the aim of publishing Menabrea's description in England. (Although Menabrea was Italian and his article was in large part based on a lecture Babbage had delivered in Turin, the piece was written in French.)

To her translation, Lovelace appended a series of notes, A through G, her notes three times as long as the Menabrea article she translated. These notes represent her contributions to mathematics in general and to computers and computing in particular.

Ada Lovelace, Diagram for the computation of Bernoulli numbers from note G –
The first published computer algorithm (1842)

In the last of these notes, G, Lovelace described a set of operations for Babbage's Analytical Engine to compute Bernoulli numbers. (I have no idea what Bernoulli numbers are, and even after reading about them I am stumped, so I won't attempt to explain them.) What is important, however, is that Lovelace's note is regarded as the first algorithm designed to be used on a "computer." As the entry for Ada Lovelace at the Computer History Museum describes Lovelace's contribution, it represents the "first published description of a stepwise sequence of operations for solving certain mathematical problems and Ada is often referred to as 'the first programmer.'" (The United States Department of Defense named its computer language Ada in her honor, its standard document acronym MIL-STD-1815 referring to the year of her birth.)

More important, however, are Lovelace's recognitions of the possibilities for the Analytic Engine beyond the purely computational. Again, quoting the Computer History Museum assessment, her reflections are "visionary":

She speculated that the Engine "might act upon other things besides number. . . . [T]the Engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent." The idea of a machine that could manipulate symbols in accordance with rules and that number could represent entities other than quantity mark the fundamental transition from calculation to computation. Ada was the first to explicitly articulate this notion and in this she appears to have seen further than Babbage. She has been referred to as "prophet of the computer age." Certainly she was the first to express the potential for computers outside mathematics. 

Ada Lovelace is today widely recognized and appreciated--there are many biographies, websites (I like Finding Ada: Celebrating the Achievements of Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths and the Ada Initiative: Supporting Women in Open Technology and Culture--although this site, unfortunately, shut down in October 2015, while keeping the archive available), stickers, necklaces, coffee mugs, and even a graphic novel, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage.

And there is an Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating women's achievements in science, technology, and mathematics. (My post for Ada Lovelace Day 2015 is here.)

But there is also more than a little resistance to crediting Ada Lovelace with contributing to the development of computers and computing. (That's why I've linked to the Computer History Museum here--nothing like recognition for Ada Lovelace coming straight from Mountain View, CA, with video promos for the museum and its exhibits featuring Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak.) For an interesting essay on the resistance, check out the Ada Initiative's exploration of the issue, "Deleting Ada Lovelace from the History of Computing," by clicking here. (The original post has been deleted—here’s a link to the essay as preserved by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.)

Ada Lovelace died on 27 November 1852, just days before her thirty-seventh birthday.

On Ada Lovelace Day: Trota of Salerno

Celebrating Ada Lovelace Day, 14 October 2014: Trota and The Trotula

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, described by its sponsoring organization as "an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM)." As part of the worldwide event, we are all encouraged to write about an inspirational woman and her achievements in one of the STEM fields.

A female medical practitioner, likely Trotula
(MS 544, Miscellanea Medica XVIII,
from Wellcome Collection, London)

To that end, I'd like to contribute the name of Trota of Salerno, a twelfth-century physician and medical writer.

Although her achievements--and even her existence--were disputed for centuries, Trota is now recognized as the most famous of the mulieres Salernitanae ("women of Salerno") known to have practiced medicine in Salerno in the Middle Ages. 

According to Monica H. Green, "Trota and her medical practices are attested by three distinct textual sources." The first of these is Practical Medicine According to Trota (Practica secundum Trotam), "a compendium of seventy-one different remedies for gynecological and obstetric conditions," and includes a wide variety of treatments for other, more general, medical problems, from lice and burns to toothache, hemorrhoids, and fever.

The "second witness" to Trota's medical expertise is On the Treatment of Illnesses (De egritudinum curatione), an anthology that includes the work of seven medical writers, including Trota. The third text associated with Trota is The Treatments for Women (De curis mulierum); Green suggests this volume may well be "a transcript of Trota's cures as she orally recounted them to a scribe, who then added further elements of his/her choosing."

Trota's name ultimately came to be associated with a group of three crucial medical texts devoted to women's healthcare, known collectively as "the Trotula." From the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, the Trotula circulated widely throughout western Europe; today, nearly two hundred manuscript versions survive. A definitive edition and translation of these texts is Green's The Trotula: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women's Medicine. Her introduction includes information about the twelfth-century "school" of Salerno and its role as a center for medical study, information about "pre-Salernitan Gynecology," and a well-detailed discussion of women practicing medicine in Salerno in the twelfth century. 

Justine Siegemund, from the 1723 edition of her handbook

On this day celebrating the achievements of women in science, three other women practicing gynecology and obstetrics might also be mentioned here. 

Jane Sharp, a seventeenth-century English midwife, published The Midwives Book; Or the Whole Art of Midwifery Discovered in London in 1671. 

Some twenty years later, in 1690, the German midwife Justine Siegemund published The Court Midwife. (To view a digital copy of the 1723 edition; click here.)

And, last but not least is Sarah Stone, an English midwife who published A Complete Practice in Midwifery in 1737. You can read her early eighteenth-century handbook, filled with case studies, here.

Update, 28 October 2023: I just ran across Isabella Gagliardi's "How the Middle Ages' Female Doctors Were Consigned to Oblivion," posted earlier this year at The Conversation. It includes a reference to Trota as well as other women who studied at Salerno's Schola Medica Salernitana.

Ada Lovelace, Women in Math and Technology, and Walter Isaacson

"The Women Tech Forgot"???

In today's New York Times, Nick Bilton's brief piece, "The Women Tech Forgot," is inspired by the forthcoming publication of Walter Isaacson's The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. Isaacson seems to have been inspired to write his book, at least in part, by his daughter, through whom he was introduced to the English mathematician, Ada Lovelace.

Any focus on women who have been written out of history, their achievements and inventions either forgotten or credited to others, is always welcome. And the diminishing role of women in technical fields is stark. As Bilton notes:

The exclusion of these women has not only reinforced stereotypes about women and technology, but has arguably had a self-fulfilling effect. In 1985, 37 percent of computer science undergraduate degrees were earned by women. By 2010, that number had fallen by half to 18 percent. 

While Isaacson's book will include an account of Ada Lovelace, as well as making some mention of the women who worked Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) program in the mid-twentieth century, there are a couple of problems with Bilton's otherwise welcome piece. 

First, its focus on Isaacson's forthcoming book is a bit problematic--there is no available table of contents to see exactly how much of this book about "hackers," "geniuses," and "geeks" is actually about women. The cover itself is interesting and perhaps illustrative--the images feature four people, only one of them female (Lovelace).

If the purpose of Bilton's piece is to introduce readers to women's roles in science and technology, there are many terrific books out there that are actually about the role of women in science and technology, including Vivian Gornick's Women in Science: Then and Now, Julie des Jardins's The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science, and Emma Ideal and Rhiannon Meharchand's Blazing the Trail: Essays by Leading Women in Science. And that's just for starters. Autumn Stanley's Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology, first published in 1995, is still in print, nearly twenty years later.

(Meanwhile, even Wikipedia has extensive entries for Ada Lovelace and all of the women who worked on the ENIAC program, among them Kathleen McNulty Antonelli, Betty Jean Jennings Bartik, Adele Katz Goldstine, Betty Snyder Holberton, Marilyn Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence, and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum. Bartik told her own story in  Pioneer Programmer, published in 2013. And there is also an excellent new documentary telling the story of these women, The Computers, produced by the ENIAC Programmers Project.)

Again, it's hard to tell exactly how much of Isaacson's book is actually about women in science and technology, but Bilton seems to regard Isaacson's ignorance about Ada Lovelace as indicative of her "lost" status. "While some in tech may know of her," Bilton concludes, Lovelace "is far from a household name." Despite Bilton's unfamiliarity--and Isaacson's--I find it hard to believe any university student studying computer science today wouldn't have heard of Ada Lovelace--according to Bilton's own piece, Isaacson's daughter Betsy was writing her college entrance essay about Lovelace! The US Department of Defense named its computer programming language Ada in her honor--it was first released in 1980. Lovelace is a figure who appears frequently in pop culture, Ada Lovelace Day has been celebrated internationally since 2009, the Ada Initiative, founded in 2011, was named after her, and she was even honored with her own Google Doodle in 2012!

But the bigger problem--and a real howler--is the place this piece occupies in the Times. This article about "the women that tech forgot" is not included in the Technology section or the Science section or even among the book reviews. Bilton's essay about how women in science are either ignored or forgotten is printed in the Fashion and Style section--because, you know, women. Yeesh!

Isaacson's may well be an inclusive book, going far to reintegrate women into the history of "the digital revolution." But if you're interested in reading about women in science, there are many other excellent resources--and you can easily find them with a few tools produced by that digital revolution--with Google and a few clicks of your mouse.

Update: Brendan Koerner's review of Isaacson's The Innovators appears in the Sunday, 5 September NYT Book Review (BR 13). Among the "hackers, geniuses, and geeks," Korner mentions only one woman in his review, Ada Lovelace. And while his review is accompanied by a 1943 photo of ENIAC programmers Bartik and Spence, he mentions only John Mauchly and John Atanasoff's "bitter patent fight" in his discussion of Isaacson's book.

The table of contents of The Innovators is now available via Amazon. The table of contents notes Ada Lovelace in the opening and closing chapters. Under "women" in the index, there are only two entries: "as ENIAC programmers, 95-100, 117" and "math doctorates received by, 88." There is a fair amount of coverage of Grace Hopper, a pioneering computer programmer, 88-95 and 117-18, with a few additional scattered references. And Bill Gates's mom, Mary, gets a shout-out on p. 361. And so it goes . . .

By the way . . . Ada Lovelace day is coming soon--Tuesday, 14 October. You can honor the "women tech forgot" by checking out the events at the website Finding Ada.