Ada Lovelace: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Ada Lovelace sits at a strange crossroads: the daughter of Romanticism's most notorious poet, trained in mathematics as an antidote to her father's temperament, who then wrote the first published account of what a general-purpose machine could mean. This mix traces the Victorian scientific salons, the Menabrea translation that became her masterpiece, and the twentieth-century computing culture that took her name.

The Kynda mix for Ada Lovelace

• Key Influence · On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures by Charles Babbage (1832). Lovelace met Babbage in 1833, when she was seventeen, at a London gathering where he demonstrated the Difference Engine; she called it a 'thinking machine'. This book, Babbage's study of factory organisation and the division of labour, is the intellectual bedrock of his engine projects — mechanising process itself. Her later Notes extend exactly this logic from cloth and pin-making to the manipulation of symbols.
• Influencia Obscura · Notions sur la machine analytique de M. Charles Babbage by Luigi Federico Menabrea (1842). A young Italian military engineer, later prime minister of Italy, wrote up Babbage's Turin lectures in French for a Geneva journal. Almost nobody reads Menabrea today, yet his modest sketch is the literal substrate of Lovelace's fame: she translated it from French and appended notes three times longer than the original. Without this obscure article there is no Note G, and no first published algorithm.
• Local Roots · On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences by Mary Somerville (1834). Somerville was Lovelace's friend, mentor and chaperone in London scientific society, and it was in her circle that Lovelace's acquaintance with Babbage deepened. This bestselling synthesis of astronomy, optics and physics proved a woman could command the whole map of the sciences in print. Lovelace's ambition to write, not merely study, follows directly from the example set in Somerville's Chelsea drawing room.
• Beyond the Medium · Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron (1812). Her father left England a month after her birth and she never met him, yet her mother's mathematical curriculum was explicitly designed to inoculate her against Byronic wildness. Lovelace instead fused the two, describing her approach as 'poetical science'. Childe Harold, the poem that made Byron a celebrity overnight, is the inheritance she was raised in flight from and never stopped arguing with.
• Peer · Formal Logic by Augustus De Morgan (1847). De Morgan tutored Lovelace in advanced mathematics by correspondence from 1840, setting her problems in calculus and functional equations, and told her mother she had unusual aptitude. His own project — treating logic as an algebra of relations — is the discipline in which her Notes make sense. Reading him alongside her is reading her actual classroom, mid-1840s London mathematics at its most inventive.
• From the Canon · Sketch of the Analytical Engine, with Notes by the Translator by Ada Lovelace (1843). Published in Taylor's Scientific Memoirs under the initials A.A.L., this is the work. Seven notes, A through G, running far longer than Menabrea's original: the distinction between the Analytical Engine and mere calculators, the suggestion it could compose music or manipulate symbols of any kind, the caution that it can only do what we order it to perform, and the step-by-step Bernoulli-number computation.
• Key Collaborator · Table of the Logarithms of the Natural Numbers, from 1 to 108000 by Charles Babbage (1827). Before the engines, Babbage produced this famously accurate log table, printed on tinted papers to test legibility and reduce error. The drudgery and unreliability of hand-computed tables is precisely what drove him to build machines, and thus what brought Lovelace to him. It is the collaborator's craft at its most unglamorous: the problem that the Analytical Engine, and her Notes, existed to solve.
• Legacy · Computing Machinery and Intelligence by Alan Turing (1950). Turing devotes a numbered section of this paper to 'Lady Lovelace's Objection' — her claim that the Analytical Engine can originate nothing — and answers it directly, arguing machines may yet surprise us. It is the single most consequential citation of her work, taking a footnote in a Victorian translation and making it the central philosophical problem of artificial intelligence.

What influenced Ada Lovelace

• Mary Somerville. Establishes Somerville as Lovelace's tutor. (also via On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age) “their mutual friend, and Lovelace's private tutor, Mary Somerville” (Wikipedia)
• Augustus De Morgan. Establishes De Morgan as a mathematical mentor to Lovelace. (also via Formal Logic) “the mathematician Augustus De Morgan extended her "much help in her mathematical studies" including study of advanced calculus topics” (Wikipedia)
• On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures by Charles Babbage (1832). On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (Charles Babbage) — titan for Ada Lovelace “Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), also known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose …” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Notions sur la machine analytique de M. Charles Babbage by Luigi Federico Menabrea (1842). Notions sur la machine analytique de M. Charles Babbage (Luigi Federico Menabrea) — ghost for Ada Lovelace “with notes by translator Ada Lovelace (1842), which described many aspects of computer architecture and is considered the first modern example of programming.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron (1812). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Lord Byron) — culture for Ada Lovelace “Lovelace was the only legitimate child of poet Lord Byron and reformer Anne Isabella Milbanke.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley (1818). Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (Mary Shelley) — culture for Ada Lovelace “Lovelace and Mary Shelley as teenagers are the central characters in Jordan Stratford's steampunk series, The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Sketch of the Analytical Engine by Luigi Menabrea. States Lovelace translated and expanded Menabrea's article on the Analytical Engine. “Lovelace translated an article by the military engineer Luigi Menabrea about the analytical engine, supplementing it with seven long explanatory notes” (Wikipedia)
• Babbage's Calculating Engine (Edinburgh Review essay) by Dionysius Lardner (1834). Babbage's Calculating Engine (Edinburgh Review essay) (Dionysius Lardner) — ghost for Ada Lovelace
• William Frend. Establishes Frend as one of Lovelace's private tutors.

Peers and kindred spirits

• Charles Babbage. Establishes Lovelace's collaborative working relationship with Babbage. (also via On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, Table of the Logarithms of the Natural Numbers, from 1 to 108000)
• On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences by Mary Somerville (1834). On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (Mary Somerville) — geography for Ada Lovelace “Lovelace first met him on 5 June 1833, when she and her mother attended one of Charles Babbage's Saturday night soirées with their mutual friend, and Lovelace's private tutor, Mary Somerville.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Chemical History of a Candle by Michael Faraday (1861). The Chemical History of a Candle (Michael Faraday) — geography for Ada Lovelace “Lovelace's educational and social exploits brought her into contact with scientists such as Andrew Crosse, Charles Babbage, David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone and Michael Faraday, and the author Charles Dickens, contacts which she used t…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Formal Logic by Augustus De Morgan (1847). Formal Logic (Augustus De Morgan) — peer for Ada Lovelace “In the 1840s, the mathematician Augustus De Morgan extended her "much help in her mathematical studies" including study of advanced calculus topics including the "numbers of Bernoulli" (that formed her celebrated algorithm for Babbage's …” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Table of the Logarithms of the Natural Numbers, from 1 to 108000 by Charles Babbage (1827). Table of the Logarithms of the Natural Numbers, from 1 to 108000 (Charles Babbage) — collaborator for Ada Lovelace “Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), also known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose …” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age by Mary Somerville (1873). Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age (Mary Somerville) — collaborator for Ada Lovelace “Lovelace first met him on 5 June 1833, when she and her mother attended one of Charles Babbage's Saturday night soirées with their mutual friend, and Lovelace's private tutor, Mary Somerville.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Charles Wheatstone (1802). Wheatstone commissioned Lovelace's translation work. “Babbage's friend Charles Wheatstone commissioned Lovelace to translate Menabrea's paper into English” (Wikipedia)
• An Investigation of the Laws of Thought by George Boole (1854). An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (George Boole) — peer for Ada Lovelace (openlibrary.org)

Who Ada Lovelace influenced

• Michael Faraday (1791). Faraday publicly supported Lovelace's written work. (also via The Chemical History of a Candle) “the scientist Michael Faraday described himself as a supporter of her writing” (Wikipedia)
• Computing Machinery and Intelligence by Alan Turing (1950). Computing Machinery and Intelligence (Alan Turing) — legacy for Ada Lovelace “Note G also contains what came to be known as "Lady Lovelace's Objection" to the concept of artificial intelligence, so named by Alan Turing in his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" The objection is Lovelace's statement that: …” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua (2015). The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage (Sydney Padua) — legacy for Ada Lovelace “Lovelace and Babbage are also the main characters in Sydney Padua's webcomic and graphic novel The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Alan Turing (1912). Turing named a concept in his paper after Lovelace's objection. (also via Computing Machinery and Intelligence)
• Ada and the Engine. Gunderson's play portrays Lovelace and Babbage. “The 2015 play Ada and the Engine by Lauren Gunderson portrays Lovelace and Charles Babbage in unrequited love” (Wikipedia)
• Ada (programming language). The Ada programming language was named in her honor. “The computer language Ada, created on behalf of the United States Department of Defense, was named after Lovelace” (Wikipedia)
• Ada Lovelace (microarchitecture). Nvidia's GPU architecture is named after her. “The 2022 graphics processor microarchitecture from Nvidia is named Ada Lovelace” (Wikipedia)
• Cardano. Cardano cryptocurrency named its units after Lovelace. “The Cardano cryptocurrency platform, launched in 2017, uses Ada as the name for the cryptocurrency and Lovelace as the smallest sub-unit of an Ada” (Wikipedia)
• Stephen Wolfram (1959). Wolfram defends Lovelace's original contribution to the Bernoulli number algorithm. “there's nothing as sophisticated—or as clean—as Ada's computation of the Bernoulli numbers. Babbage certainly helped and commented on Ada's work, but she was definitely the driver of it.” (Wikipedia)
• Doron Swade (1946). Swade credits Lovelace with articulating the shift from calculation to general-purpose computation. “that transition was made explicitly by Ada in that 1843 paper” (Wikipedia)
• Arcadia. Stoppard's character Thomasina is based on Lovelace.
• The Difference Engine. Lovelace appears as a character in Gibson and Sterling's novel.
• The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency. Lovelace is a central character in Stratford's book series.
• Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land. Crowley's novel features Lovelace as a character.
• Childe Byron. Linney's play portrays Lovelace.