Today is Ada Lovelace day!
You have probably heard of Ada Lovelace but you might not be entirely clear on why she is famous or who she really was. Here are some facts you might not know about her but you definitely should!
Her father was Lord Byron
Yes, that Byron. Ada’s Mum and Dad separated in 1815 when Ada was 3 months old. The mad, bad and dangerous to know poet sadly (or not so sadly, depending on your point of view) died when Ada was 8.
It was said to be that, because Ada’s Mother wanted to avoid her daughter inheriting Byron’s reckless artistic temperament, she pushed her daughter into the study of mathematics.
She wasn’t really accepted.
Ada had to publish her work under her initials, as women were not seen to be intellectual.
Although Ada’s mother had succeeded in providing her daughter with the best education and had passed onto her a real thirst for knowledge. She hadn’t done quite so well when it came to teaching her how to be a lady in victorian England.
In an 1835 edition of the New York Mirror (Ada would have been 20) was written: “It is said that Ada Byron, sole daughter of the ‘noble bard’, is the most coarse and vulgar woman in England!” Even Babbage, her good friend, was said to have described her as having “a good deal of the Byron devil”!
She’s buried next to the Father she never knew
She died from cancer in 1852 – at just 36 years old. At her own request, she was buried next to her well known father in a Nottinghamshire churchyard.
It took a while for the world to catch up
Lovelace’s ideas about computing were so far ahead of their time that it took nearly a century for technology to catch up. While Lovelace’s notes on Babbage’s analytical engine gained little attention at the time (they were originally published in 1843), they found a much wider audience when republished in B.V. Bowden’s 1953 book “Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines”. As the field of computer science dawned in the 1950s, Lovelace gained a new following in the digital age.
There’s a computing language named after her
The US department of defence computer language is named Ada. Each October, Ada Lovelace Day recognizes women in maths, science and engineering, who the British Computer Society then award the ‘Ada Lovelace medal’ to.
You can read more about Ada Lovelace by following the links below:
https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-ada-lovelace
https://www.biography.com/people/ada-lovelace-20825323
GET INVOLVED
An official event for Ada Lovelace day, Peterborough STEM festival returns in 2018 for it’s 3rd year. It will be held at the Kingsgate Conference Centre, Peterborough on October 13th, from 9.30am until 4pm.
Promising fun activities to celebrate and experience the wonders of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This event is FREE to enter and suitable for the whole family. You just need to book your FREE tickets here:
https://www.peterboroughstemfestival.co.uk/
