lady lovelace
born: 1815, London
died: 1852, London
best known as:
mathematician and first computer programmer
(and... Lord Byron's daughter)
Ada! sole daughter of my house and of my heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled'
And then we parted,-not as now we part,
but with a hope.'
Lord Byron, Childe Harold
[on computers and music]
... it [the Analytical Engine] might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine . . . 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.
[on computer graphics]
The distinctive characteristic of the Analytical Engine, and that which has rendered it possible to endow mechanism with such extensive faculties as bid fair to make this engine the executive right-hand of abstract algebra, is the introduction into it of the principle which Jacquard devised for regulating, by means of punched cards, the most complicated patterns in the fabrication of brocaded stuffs.
