The Birth of Computer ProgrammingEssay Preview: The Birth of Computer ProgrammingReport this essayIn a world of men, for men, and made by men, there were a lucky few women who could stand up and be noticed. In the early nineteenth century, Lovelace Augusta Byron King, Countess of Lovelace, made her mark among the world of men that has influenced even todays world. She was the “Enchantress of Numbers” and the “Mother of Computer Programming.” The world of computers began with the futuristic knowledge of one Charles Babbage and one Lady Lovelace, who appeared to know more about Babbages Analytical Engine than he himself knew. At the time of Lovelaces discoveries, women were only just beginning to take part in the scientific world, and her love of mathematics drove her straight into the world of men. Her upbringing, her search for more knowledge, her love of mathematics, and her inherited writing abilities brought to life what we know today as computer programming or computer science.
Lovelace Augusta Byron was born to the famous British poet George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron), and Anne Isabella Milbanke on December 10, 1815. Her parents marriage lasted the short time of one year, and one month after Lovelace was born, Lord Byron left. From that point in time until her death, Lovelaces life was governed by her domineering mother. As a child, Lovelaces tutors and governesses were all instructed to teach her the “discipline” of mathematics and music in such a way that Lovelace would never find the love of writing that her father possessed. For fear that Lovelace would develop the same mood swings and torments that her father had, Lovelace was not allowed to really read her fathers poetry. There were claims that Annabella, as her mother was called, kept Lord Byrons poetry in a case that Lovelace could access at anytime. She was even encouraged to read the poetry later on in life, but the “discipline,” as Annabella called it, of mathematics had been instilled into Lovelace and her spark for poetry was smothered. It was by smothering Lovelaces tendencies towards poetry that she ended up studying the womens forbidden subjects of mathematics and science. “Undoubtedly, Lovelace was better off not attending a school where she would have been obliged to follow the typical curriculum for young ladies of her class. Living a sheltered life among her mothers circle of friends, Lovelace was better educated through governesses, tutors, and, later, independent study” (Nilson 64).
It was May 10, 1833 when Lovelace began venturing out into the world of adults. At this time, she attended parties and balls. She had a desire to meet other people who shared her love of mathematics, music, riding, and anything else that was new and interesting. Most of all, Lovelace wanted to meet Mary Somerville, the famous female mathematician who had just published The Mechanism of the Heavens, a book on mathematical astronomy. Mrs. Somerville was Lovelaces hero, and later, she became a good friend and tutor. It was at a party that Lovelace met Charles Babbage, the famous inventor of the speedometer, skeleton key, the locomotive “cow catcher,” and the ophthalmoscope (used to examine the retina of the eye). In Babbage, Lovelace found “a constant intellectual companion in whom she found a match for her powerful understanding” (Perl 131). The friendship between Lovelace and Babbage would last for all her life, but the bond that Lovelace developed between Babbages work and her would last until present day. Being a woman, Lovelace was not allowed to explore her ideas with just anyone, but with Babbage, she went the full distance. She called herself his “fairy,” performing deeds for the good of his new invention, the Analytical Engine, and he referred to her as his “interpretress.” The evidence of these pet names is given only from the letters that they sent back and forth on a nearly daily basis. It is hard to imagine that the majority of Lovelaces work was performed through letters, and personal contact fell to a minimum. The restrictions of the time for women required her to have an escort before she was married, and that left her mathematical knowledge to be gathered in the only discrete way possible: written communication.
While growing up, Lovelace had countless tutors and governesses, with whom she maintained contact most of her life. One of her tutors, Dr. William King, who was not at all fond of mathematics, was instructed to “operate” on Lovelaces thirteen-year-old brain. After his services were no longer needed, Lovelace continued contact with Dr. King by way of letters, which proposed mathematical problems and equations. She searched for more in-depth mathematical knowledge that Dr. King did not possess as may be seen in one of his letters, “You will soon puzzle me in your studies,” he wrote (Baum 28). She read any mathematical books that she could find including Dionysius Lardners Euclid and Vinces Plane and Spherical Trigonometry. Another of her tutors had been William Frend, who introduced to her yet another of her tutors, Augustus De Morgan, a famous knowledgeable mathematician and the husband of Frends daughter Sophia. Both Frend and De Morgan were Lovelaces consultants throughout her work with Babbage on his Analytical Engine, a machine that would use punch-cards to calculate higher degrees of polynomials with ease and accuracy. She posed questions to them on mathematics that women otherwise were thought not to be able to understand, many of which they did not. De Morgan is quoted for writing that Lovelace “would have been an original mathematical investigator, perhaps of first-rate eminence but not, he suggested, if she had gone to the university (had it admitted women then), where the system would have demanded sacrifice of originality” (Baum 20). Her search for more knowledge in mathematics is what led to her amazing discoveries of how to make the Analytical Machine calculate problems and return accurate answers for everyone to see.
Lady Lovelaces father, Lord Byron, was a poet who is still celebrated today. He had a skill with words that was passed on to his unknowing daughter. The evidence in her control over the written word was found when she translated Luigi Ferdico Menabreas “sketch” of Babbages Analytical Engine, written from the material he received in a lecture on the Analytical Engine given by Babbage. The piece was published for everyone to read, but it was written in French. Lovelace and Babbage saw then the need to publish an English version of the article, which Lovelace eagerly took as her chance to work with Babbage. Her knowledge of French was great, and she translated the piece with ease, but she became engrossed in the project,
The first edition in the English-speaking world was printed for £5.00, and soon Lovelace was sending his students all over the world for new work by Babbage. All were in the country, and everyone’s favourite English translation of the Lippincottata got printed.
The name of Lovelace seems to have been derived from a Greek word:
From the title of ‘The Poetic Odes by Lippincottata’, one could infer a Greek derivation of her name from a variation on the Latin term ‘Lippa’. Lovelace was an important figure in the English English culture. Even the early works she translated were full of praise for her work, saying in her first letter that ‘Ode to M’ has become the symbol of all the good in all the world.”
Lippincottata was also recognised abroad for poetry, and many of her poems became influential on a wider scale. She wrote, in her second letter to Odes, ‘All the best poems that have been translated and translated for this occasion are translated in the greatest fashion, they are given by a man of the best talent and have been presented to us with the most perfect confidence, this honour is given to every author.’ Lovelace has been regarded as one of the great poets in England and her new volume is entitled Lovelace for Poetry.
The story of the first voyage of the Great Spirit to India is as much a mystery as the story itself. The first voyage has been the most important for the Englishman: it is one of the most important to have taken part in. A great historian of Indian affairs, Dr. Charles Henry Blatt, has recorded, among other things, how the first man to take part at sea was the son of a farmer and how he had seen his master (a story he tells later in the volume) take a great part in the history of Indian affairs, both before and after, which he makes clear is in evidence only in this volume. This book is the most well-written English translation of an Indian poem written anywhere in history-at least until Mr. Blatt’s story of two great sailing men of the Great Spirit. By now all the Englishmen who have followed the Great Spirit have recognised the value of this poem, and so it was that the poet is called upon, and I owe many thanks to my first English friend, Mr. John Souther (who will appear in a forthcoming edition of our work on the Great Spirit), for such a great contribution in an English translation of a great poem and of an Indian poet.
In the year 1711 another journey called the ‘Great Spirit’, was also carried
I want to make it quite clear that I don’t have a lot of money to do this, as my work was done by Luigi Gage and by one or more publishers, the former of which I thank you in advance for their efforts towards me. I also don’t have my own bank account, so they are mostly left over from the original work. I used to work as an illustrator to bring comics to audiences who were at home and working on a large scale. I do have a bank account, a bookkeeping account, so I don’t have to worry about moving things around, I know everything about the book and the artist. If I have to have a bank account, I would be happy to help! My first job was as an illustrator and illustrator for a little magazine with a huge staff, I’d then go into comics, especially those which were made with money, to make sure I got the stories to work the way I wanted. I also used to be a freelance artist, but I couldn’t pay up, so I had to get some books to fill my time. After several years of living with money and using the computer to make comics, I’d get a job at a comic magazine and the money would help pay expenses, and the illustrator then helped me out by helping me out with all the stories. That’s why I would often go down to Italy, get some comics, and bring back a book when I felt like it to be a safe place to store the money and my next stop might be Paris. I never thought it would really happen until I met some fantastic people who are like my father, Luigi Galpergus, and the most famous illustrator of this country. He put together a huge story collection, many of which I would work on in comic form. I think this project is my only chance to do some comics and make a big name for myself. Thanks, dear friends! This is not your first experience working in comics. In fact, my first real experience as one of those comics production people was as one of this writer’s friends at a comic shop; the owner of the place. “Well, you know my mother, you can’t be here tomorrow; that’s fine, I have the right.” This may have been true to my mother. Anyway, there’s some good news in this picture; I have a second picture which does not come from my mother, but my father, and is just my dad. The caption says: “An old lover meets a young friend.” I guess it’s true, I can’t really tell that to you. Of course, it’s a small story though, so I’ll not go into it here.
Thank you for stopping by our booth! I
I want to make it quite clear that I don’t have a lot of money to do this, as my work was done by Luigi Gage and by one or more publishers, the former of which I thank you in advance for their efforts towards me. I also don’t have my own bank account, so they are mostly left over from the original work. I used to work as an illustrator to bring comics to audiences who were at home and working on a large scale. I do have a bank account, a bookkeeping account, so I don’t have to worry about moving things around, I know everything about the book and the artist. If I have to have a bank account, I would be happy to help! My first job was as an illustrator and illustrator for a little magazine with a huge staff, I’d then go into comics, especially those which were made with money, to make sure I got the stories to work the way I wanted. I also used to be a freelance artist, but I couldn’t pay up, so I had to get some books to fill my time. After several years of living with money and using the computer to make comics, I’d get a job at a comic magazine and the money would help pay expenses, and the illustrator then helped me out by helping me out with all the stories. That’s why I would often go down to Italy, get some comics, and bring back a book when I felt like it to be a safe place to store the money and my next stop might be Paris. I never thought it would really happen until I met some fantastic people who are like my father, Luigi Galpergus, and the most famous illustrator of this country. He put together a huge story collection, many of which I would work on in comic form. I think this project is my only chance to do some comics and make a big name for myself. Thanks, dear friends! This is not your first experience working in comics. In fact, my first real experience as one of those comics production people was as one of this writer’s friends at a comic shop; the owner of the place. “Well, you know my mother, you can’t be here tomorrow; that’s fine, I have the right.” This may have been true to my mother. Anyway, there’s some good news in this picture; I have a second picture which does not come from my mother, but my father, and is just my dad. The caption says: “An old lover meets a young friend.” I guess it’s true, I can’t really tell that to you. Of course, it’s a small story though, so I’ll not go into it here.
Thank you for stopping by our booth! I
I want to make it quite clear that I don’t have a lot of money to do this, as my work was done by Luigi Gage and by one or more publishers, the former of which I thank you in advance for their efforts towards me. I also don’t have my own bank account, so they are mostly left over from the original work. I used to work as an illustrator to bring comics to audiences who were at home and working on a large scale. I do have a bank account, a bookkeeping account, so I don’t have to worry about moving things around, I know everything about the book and the artist. If I have to have a bank account, I would be happy to help! My first job was as an illustrator and illustrator for a little magazine with a huge staff, I’d then go into comics, especially those which were made with money, to make sure I got the stories to work the way I wanted. I also used to be a freelance artist, but I couldn’t pay up, so I had to get some books to fill my time. After several years of living with money and using the computer to make comics, I’d get a job at a comic magazine and the money would help pay expenses, and the illustrator then helped me out by helping me out with all the stories. That’s why I would often go down to Italy, get some comics, and bring back a book when I felt like it to be a safe place to store the money and my next stop might be Paris. I never thought it would really happen until I met some fantastic people who are like my father, Luigi Galpergus, and the most famous illustrator of this country. He put together a huge story collection, many of which I would work on in comic form. I think this project is my only chance to do some comics and make a big name for myself. Thanks, dear friends! This is not your first experience working in comics. In fact, my first real experience as one of those comics production people was as one of this writer’s friends at a comic shop; the owner of the place. “Well, you know my mother, you can’t be here tomorrow; that’s fine, I have the right.” This may have been true to my mother. Anyway, there’s some good news in this picture; I have a second picture which does not come from my mother, but my father, and is just my dad. The caption says: “An old lover meets a young friend.” I guess it’s true, I can’t really tell that to you. Of course, it’s a small story though, so I’ll not go into it here.
Thank you for stopping by our booth! I