Authors
Ada Lovelace
1815 – 1852
Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician — and daughter of the poet Lord Byron — who worked with inventor Charles Babbage on an early mechanical computer called the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the machine included an algorithm for calculating Bernoulli numbers, work many consider the world's first computer program. She's remembered today as the first computer programmer, over a century before modern computers existed, and the U.S. Department of Defense later named its Ada programming language after her.
Quotes
“There are in all extensions of human power, or additions to human knowledge, various collateral influences, besides the main and primary object attained.”
“Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.”
“Granted that the actual mechanism is unerring in its processes, the cards may give it wrong orders.”
“The bounds of arithmetic were however outstepped the moment the idea of applying the cards had occurred; and the Analytical Engine does not occupy common ground with mere "calculating machines."”
“It is desirable to guard against the possibility of exaggerated ideas that might arise as to the powers of the Analytical Engine.”
“That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal, as time will show.”
“We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
“It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.”
“I mean to do what I mean to do.”