The First Computer Program
Lovelace would go on to document Babbage's difference engine, as well as envisioning how it may be used by writing algorithms in her notes. She is widely credited as having written the first published computer program, when her algorithm to calculate the Bernoulli numbers was printed in a scientific journal in 1843.
Ada’s exploits also helped her create relationships with scientists such as Andrew Crosse, Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, and the author Charles Dickens, contacts which she used to further her knowledge and gain more insight into her passions. Ada described her approach as ‘poetical science’ and was a self-described Analyst & Metaphysician.
More than a century after her death, her notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine were republished and the Engine itself has now been recognised as an early model for the computer. Her notes describing this and the software show us just how advanced Charles and Ada both were in their thinking. Ada had many ideas about the potential of these machines and anticipated modern computing one hundred years early... Now that’s impressive!!