She knew the future and the reality of technology

On the right is a picture of Augusta Ada King, also known as Augusta Ada Byron. She is the daughter of George Gordon Byron, or Lord Byron, who was a widely known English poet during their time. But why is this lady so phenomenal that I had to mention her in this blog? It’s because she seemed to have predicted the future before anyone else had–she had predicted what computers could become in the early 19th century. She had written that she supposed a machine could be used to generate music and even create graphics (I would love to find the exact quote, but only my English teacher actually has the book about her on hand).

Even today, Ada King is very important. Why? The basic ideas of binary code–the code that is basically in all computer languages–stems from Ada King’s writings and ideas. Her if, then, and else statements. All computer languages basically utilize these statements to write any mathematical code, loop, or array in a program. It’s no wonder that the US Defense Department named a computer language after her, Ada.

Ada’s family tree is also pretty interesting. I only learned about her while my class was looking into Lord Byron, the famous poet. Byron was a pretty “loose” man–he slept with many women and even had an incestuous affair with his half-sister, Augusta (after who Ada was named). It was only after Augusta, the half-sister, became pregnant did she urge Byron to marry someone else in order to prevent rumors from circulating that Augusta’s child was his. Thus, Byron chose Annabella Milbanke, and they had Ada. Apparently, Milbanke knew or at least had some idea that Byron had an affair with his half-sister and she left him shortly after Ada was born.

Annabella was quite into mathematics and started to home-school Ada at a young age on the subject of math–Annabella didn’t like literature or at least, she didn’t want her daughter to grow up to be a poet like her father. She didn’t quite agree with the romantic ideas of Lord Byron.

Anyway, throughout Ada’s childhood, her mentors and teachers included one or two famous mathematicians of the time. When she grew up, she became quite into mathematics herself and found details about a machine that was in the making that had hopes of being able to calculate. I guess from there, the idea of artificial intelligence started to grow.

I find this lady just so remarkable! She knew a lot of famous people and she created a lot of famous documents and ideas herself. It’s amazing how certain people are!