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# Ada Lovelace — Contributions to Computing

## The Analytical Engine Notes

In 1842–43, Ada Lovelace translated an article by Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea on
Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. She supplemented the article with an extensive set of
notes she called simply "Notes", which are now recognised as the first published algorithm
intended to be carried out by a machine.

Her notes are labeled A through G. Note G in particular contains an algorithm for the Analytical
Engine to compute Bernoulli numbers, making it the first published algorithm specifically intended
for implementation on a computing machine.

## First Computer Programmer

Ada's notes were three times longer than the original article. She developed a method for the
engine to repeat a series of instructions — a process now called looping. She understood the
importance of the Analytical Engine as a general-purpose computing device, writing:

> "The engine can arrange and combine its numerical quantities exactly as if they were letters
> or any other general symbols; and in fact it might bring out its results in algebraical
> notation, were provisions made accordingly."

## Recognition and Legacy

Ada Lovelace died on 27 November 1852, at the age of 36, from uterine cancer. Her work was
not widely known until Alan Turing cited her 1843 paper in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery
and Intelligence".

The United States Department of Defense named a computer programming language "Ada" after her
in 1980. In the United Kingdom, Ada Lovelace Day is held on the second Tuesday of October each
year to celebrate the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Ada Lovelace's portrait is on the obverse of the British Army's identity card.
