logo
Ada Lovelace's skills with language, music, and needlepoint contributed to her pioneering work in computing

Ada Lovelace's skills with language, music, and needlepoint contributed to her pioneering work in computing

Yahoo03-03-2025
Ada Lovelace, known as the first computer programmer, was born on Dec. 10, 1815, more than a century before digital electronic computers were developed.
Lovelace has been hailed as a model for girls in science, technology, engineering, and math, also known as STEM. A dozen biographies for young audiences were published for the 200th anniversary of her birth in 2015. And in 2018, The New York Times added hers as one of the first "missing obituaries" of women at the rise of the #MeToo movement.
But Lovelace—properly Ada King, Countess of Lovelace after her marriage—drew on many different fields for her innovative work, including languages, music, and needlecraft, in addition to mathematical logic. Recognizing that her well-rounded education enabled her to accomplish work that was well ahead of her time, she can be a model for all students, not just girls, Corinna Schlombs, a history professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, writes for The Conversation.
Lovelace was the daughter of the scandal-ridden romantic poet George Gordon Byron, aka Lord Byron, and his highly educated and strictly religious wife Anne Isabella Noel Byron, known as Lady Byron. Lovelace's parents separated shortly after her birth. At a time when women were not allowed to own property and had few legal rights, her mother managed to secure custody of her daughter.
Growing up in a privileged aristocratic family, Lovelace was educated by home tutors, as was common for girls like her. She received lessons in French and Italian, music, and in suitable handicrafts such as embroidery. Less common for a girl in her time, she also studied math. Lovelace continued to work with math tutors into her adult life, and she eventually corresponded with mathematician and logician Augustus De Morgan at London University about symbolic logic.
Lovelace drew on all of these lessons when she wrote her computer program—in reality, it was a set of instructions for a mechanical calculator that had been built only in parts.
The computer in question was the Analytical Engine designed by mathematician, philosopher, and inventor Charles Babbage. Lovelace had met Babbage when she was introduced to London society. The two related to each other over their shared love for mathematics and fascination for mechanical calculation. By the early 1840s, Babbage had won and lost government funding for a mathematical calculator, fallen out with the skilled craftsman building the precision parts for his machine, and was close to giving up on his project. At this point, Lovelace stepped in as an advocate.
To make Babbage's calculator known to a British audience, Lovelace proposed to translate into English an article that described the Analytical Engine. The article was written in French by the Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea and published in a Swiss journal. Scholars believe that Babbage encouraged her to add notes of her own.
In her notes, which ended up twice as long as the original article, Lovelace drew on different areas of her education. Lovelace began by describing how to code instructions onto cards with punched holes, like those used for the Jacquard weaving loom, a device patented in 1804 that used punch cards to automate weaving patterns in fabric.
Having learned embroidery herself, Lovelace was familiar with the repetitive patterns used for handicrafts. Similarly repetitive steps were needed for mathematical calculations. To avoid duplicating cards for repetitive steps, Lovelace used loops, nested loops, and conditional testing in her program instructions.
The notes included instructions on how to calculate Bernoulli numbers, which Lovelace knew from her training to be important in the study of mathematics. Her program showed that the Analytical Engine was capable of performing original calculations that had not yet been performed manually. At the same time, Lovelace noted that the machine could only follow instructions and not "originate anything."
Finally, Lovelace recognized that the numbers manipulated by the Analytical Engine could be seen as other types of symbols, such as musical notes. An accomplished singer and pianist, Lovelace was familiar with musical notation symbols representing aspects of musical performance, such as pitch and duration, and she had manipulated logical symbols in her correspondence with De Morgan. It was not a large step for her to realize that the Analytical Engine could process symbols—not just crunch numbers—and even compose music.
Inventing computer programming was not the first time Lovelace brought her knowledge from different areas to bear on a new subject. For example, as a young girl, she was fascinated with flying machines. Bringing together biology, mechanics, and poetry, she asked her mother for anatomical books to study the function of bird wings. She built and experimented with wings, and in her letters, she metaphorically expressed her longing for her mother in the language of flying.
Despite her talents in logic and math, Lovelace didn't pursue a scientific career. She was independently wealthy and never earned money from her scientific pursuits. This was common, however, at a time when freedom—including financial independence—was equated with the capability to impartially conduct scientific experiments. In addition, Lovelace devoted just over a year to her only publication, the translation of and notes on Menabrea's paper about the Analytical Engine. Otherwise, in her life cut short by cancer at age 37, she vacillated between math, music, her mother's demands, care for her own three children, and eventually a passion for gambling. Lovelace thus may not be an obvious model as a female scientist for girls today.
However, Lovelace's way of drawing on her well-rounded education to solve difficult problems was still inspirational. True, she lived in an age before scientific specialization. Even Babbage was a polymath who worked in mathematical calculation and mechanical innovation. He also published a treatise on industrial manufacturing and another on religious questions of creationism.
But Lovelace applied knowledge from what people today think of as disparate fields in the sciences, arts, and humanities. A well-rounded thinker, she created solutions that were well ahead of her time.
This story was produced by The Conversation and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

This ancient Egyptian left behind 4,500-year-old DNA. It was used to recreate his face.
This ancient Egyptian left behind 4,500-year-old DNA. It was used to recreate his face.

National Geographic

time13 hours ago

  • National Geographic

This ancient Egyptian left behind 4,500-year-old DNA. It was used to recreate his face.

Scientists have for the first time sequenced the most complete and oldest ancient Egyptian genome ever found—unlocking new secrets from the Old Kingdom. This facial reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian whose genome was sequenced was based off a 3D-scan of the skull. Illustration by Caroline Wilkinson, Liverpool John Moores University/Morez, A. (2025), Nature Sealed in a ceramic funerary pot, knees curled to his chin, the Egyptian skeleton lay undisturbed for thousands of years. In 1902, British archaeologists excavated him from his tomb carved into a limestone hillside in the Nuwayrat necropolis, more than 150 miles south of Cairo. While the pharaohs of his time built colossal monuments like the Great Pyramid of Giza, this man, likely a potter who lived 4,500 to 4,800 years ago, left behind a different kind of legacy: his exceptionally well-preserved DNA. Somehow, his remains endured centuries of scorching Egyptian heat and even Nazi bombings while housed in Liverpool, England, during World War II. Now scientists have sequenced the first whole genome of an ancient Egyptian from intact DNA extracted from in his teeth. The study, published Wednesday in Nature, describes the oldest Egyptian DNA ever recovered, radiocarbon dated to between 2855 and 2570 B.C. This was during the end of the Early Dynastic and the beginning of the Old Kingdom periods, when Egypt's rulers consolidated power and ushered in the 'Age of the Pyramids.' 'There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ancient genomes from across the world,' says Linus Girdland-Flink, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and a co-corresponding author of the paper. To date, scientists have collected ancient DNA from Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Homo sapiens from 45,000 years ago. 'Yet, Egypt has remained a kind of white spot on the map of this big puzzle of human genetic ancestry.' Previously, the oldest DNA recovered from ancient Egypt came from three mummies buried at the Abusir el-Meleq necropolis and dated between 787 and 23 B.C. But those sequences only represented partial genomes. The new genome is complete and comes from an individual who lived some 1,500 years earlier. Pottery coffin and archaeological remains of the Nuwayrat individual, as discovered in 1902. Photograph Courtesy Garstang Museum, University of Liverpool 'This genome allows us–for the first time–to get insights into the genetic ancestry of an ancient Egyptian individual from the Old Kingdom period,' Adeline Morez Jacobs, a biological anthropologist who conducted the research while pursuing her doctoral degree at the Liverpool John Moores University, said during a press briefing. It also allowed for scientists to partially reconstruct what the person's face might have looked like. Daniel Antoine, head of the department of Egypt and Sudan at The British Museum in London, who peer-reviewed the paper, praised the work. 'Although this is based on one individual, the finding is highly significant as ancient DNA rarely survives in the Nile valley,' he says. With it, scientists can start to unravel genetic clues to how different populations of people interacted in ancient Egypt. Ancient genetic ancestry revealed With the DNA sequenced, scientists can start to ask questions about this ancient individual, starting with a basic one: who were his ancestors? While this is the lineage of just one person, it could help historians understand how people migrated and mixed in ancient Egypt. About 80 percent of the man's ancestry traces back to Neolithic populations in North Africa. The remaining 20 percent is linked to ancient peoples from West Asia, including Mesopotamia and the eastern Fertile Crescent, which encompass present day Iraq, western Iran, parts of Syria and the extreme southeast of Turkey, Morez Jacobs says. They did not find evidence of East African or sub-Saharan African ancestry in the Nuwayrat individual. The researchers don't know when in the Nuwayrat man's lineage these two populations mixed, but say it likely occurred over hundreds or even thousands of years in the man's ancestry, and maybe multiple times. This genetic data aligns with archaeological evidence, suggesting that in addition to trading goods like crops, animals and culture like writing systems and the pottery wheel, people themselves were moving and intermingling between regions. 'The paper constitutes a significant milestone in the field of ancient Egyptian genomics,' says Yehia Gad, scientific supervisor of the ancient DNA lab at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo, who was not involved in the study. He says the new finding 'reinforces the status of ancient Egypt as a hub and melting pot of the old world.' The next steps for the team, says Girdland-Flink, is to collaborate with Egyptian scientists to further decipher Egypt's past. Gad, who helps lead Egypt's national genome project, which aims to sequence the genomes of 100,000 Egyptian adults and 200 ancient Egyptian mummies, says he welcomes the idea. 'We can all serve and work together to draw a better picture of this fascinating ancient civilization, which constitutes an important stage in the journey of humanity,' he says. Facial Reconstruction and Potential Controversy In addition to sequencing the Nuwayrat man's genome, the researchers also unveiled a facial reconstruction made by forensic anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson. Wilkinson, who leads the Face Lab at Liverpool John Moores University, previously recreated the faces of figures like Ramesses II and Cleopatra's sister Arsinoë IV. Starting with a 3D scan of his skull, she constructed his facial features like the jawline, nose, and eyes—body parts that are relatively easy to predict from bone structure alone, she says. The ears and mouth, by contrast, are more difficult. Genetic analysis suggested the man likely had brown eyes, brown hair and skin pigmentation 'ranging from dark to black skin,' based on predictions from a tool called the HirisPlexS system. But the authors caution that these predictions come with some uncertainty given the limited genetic data from comparable ancient populations. Pottery vessel in which the Nuwayrat individual was discovered. Photograph Courtesy Garstang Museum, University of Liverpool Rock-cut tombs at Nuwayrat enclosing the pottery vessel containing the pottery coffin burial. Photograph Courtesy Garstang Museum, University of Liverpool To avoid speculation about features they could not definitively determine, Wilkinson says, she and her team rendered the reconstruction in grayscale, without hair or skin tone. She added that she expects the image to spark some controversy, as past depictions of other ancient Egyptians have. They are often criticized for appearing 'too European' or 'too African,' she says. But Wilkinson emphasizes that the face is just what one person in antiquity looked like. 'This individual is not representative of everybody from this period of time from this part of the world, any more than I am representative of everybody in Europe today.' For more insights into who this person was, and the life he led, scientists needed to look beyond his face. His worn teeth suggested he was between 44 and 64, though likely at the older end. His skeleton showed signs of age-related arthritis, worn joints and vertebrae, and muscle strain from frequent squatting and leaning, patterns consistent with physically demanding pottery work, says Joel Irish, a bioarchaeologist at Liverpool John Moores University and a co-author of the study. 'He was looking down a lot during his lifetime, like teenagers look at their cell phones today,' says Irish. The team concluded from these clues and by studying hieroglyphics of pottery workshops that the man was likely a potter as opposed to a baker, farmer, mason or soldier. Though they could not rule out weaver. The team speculated that if he were a potter, then perhaps there may be some link between his profession and why he was buried in the ceramic pot. But they also added that the practice wasn't unique to potters, this time period, or Nuwayrat. But what about pyramid builder? Was the Nuwayrat man hauling huge stones in Giza (more than a hundred miles away from where he was buried)? That's 'pure speculation' says Girdland-Flink. He also cautions against drawing conclusions about the people who constructed the pyramids based on this one ancient Egyptian genome." In terms of who built the pyramids,' Girdland-Flink says, 'you must have the actual workers' genomes.'

Can you spot a ‘fake' accent? It will depend on where you're from
Can you spot a ‘fake' accent? It will depend on where you're from

Yahoo

time14 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Can you spot a ‘fake' accent? It will depend on where you're from

We all need to learn how to place trust in others. It's easy to be misled. Someone who doesn't deserve trust can appear a lot like someone who does – and part of growing up in a society is developing the ability to tell the difference. An important part of this is learning about the signals people give about themselves. These might be a smile, a style of dressing or a way of speaking. In particular, we use accents to make decisions about others – especially in the UK. But what if people adapt or change their accents to fit into a certain social group or geographical area? Our past research has shown that native speakers are pretty good at spotting such speech. We've now published a follow-up study that supports and further strengthens our original results. Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK's latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences. We associate accents with places, classes and groups. Research shows that even infants use accents to determine whether they think someone is considered trustworthy. This can be a problem – studies have demonstrated that accents can affect someone's odds of getting a job – and potentially the likelihood of being found guilty of a crime. As with most topics in the social sciences, evolutionary theory has a lot to say about this process. Scientists are interested in understanding how people send and receive signals like accents, how those signals affect relationships between people and how, in turn, those relationships affect us. But because accents can affect how we treat each other, we'd expect some people to try to change them for personal gain. A social chameleon who can pretend to be a member of any social class or group is likely to win trust within each – assuming they are not caught. If that's true, though, then we'd expect people to also be good at detecting when someone is 'faking' it – what we call mimicry – setting up a kind of arms race between those who want to deceive us into trusting them and those who try to catch deceivers out. Over the last few years, we've looked into how well people detect accent mimicry. Last year we found that generally speaking, people in the UK and Ireland are strong at this, detecting mimicked accents in the UK and Ireland better than we'd expect by chance alone. What was more interesting, though, was that native listeners from the specific places of the imitated accent – Belfast, Glasgow and Dublin – were a lot better at this task than were non-natives or native listeners from further away in the UK, like Essex. Our new findings went further, though. Of the roughly 2,000 people that participated, more than 1,500 were this time based in English-speaking countries outside the UK, including the US, Canada and Australia. And on average, this group did a lot worse at detecting mimicked accents from seven different regions in the UK and Ireland than did people from the UK. In fact, people from places other than the UK barely did better than we'd expect by chance, while people who were native listeners were right between about two-thirds and three-quarters of the time. As we argued in our original article, we believe it's local cultural tensions — tribalism, classism or even warfare — that explain the differences. For example, as someone commented to me some time ago, people living in Belfast in the 1970s and 80s – a time of huge political tension – needed to be attuned to the accents of those around them. Hearing something off, like an out-group member's accent, could signal an imminent threat. This wouldn't have put the same pressures on people living in a more peaceful regions. In fact, we found that people living in large, multicultural and largely peaceful areas, such as London, didn't need to pay much attention to the accents of those around them and were worse at detecting mimicked accents. The further you move out from the native accent, too, the less likely a listener is to place emphasis on or notice anything wrong with a local accent. Someone living in the US is likely to pay even less attention to an imitation Belfast accent than is someone living in London, and accordingly will be worse at detecting mimicry. Likewise, someone growing up in Australia would be better at spotting a mimicked Australian accent than a Brit. So while accents, and our ability to detect differences in accents, probably evolved to help us place trust more effectively at a broad level, it's the cultural environment that shapes that process at the local level. Together, this has the unfortunate effect that we sometimes place a lot more emphasis on accents than we should. How someone speaks should be a lot less important than what is said. Still, accents drive how people treat each other at every level of society, just as other signals, be they tattoos, smiles or clothes, that tell us something about another person's background or heritage. Learning how these processes work and why they evolved is critical for overcoming them – and helping us to override the biases that so often prevent us from placing trust in people who deserve it. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Jonathan R. Goodman receives funding from the Wellcome Trust (grant no. 220540/Z/20/A).

Texas' McKinney Independent School District Selects Adaptive and Engaging Edtech Solution To Support Math Instruction in Grades K-5
Texas' McKinney Independent School District Selects Adaptive and Engaging Edtech Solution To Support Math Instruction in Grades K-5

Associated Press

time14 hours ago

  • Associated Press

Texas' McKinney Independent School District Selects Adaptive and Engaging Edtech Solution To Support Math Instruction in Grades K-5

CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 2, 2025 /3BL/ - Texas' McKinney Independent School District (MISD) today announced that it has selected DreamBox Math by Discovery Education, an adaptive and engaging edtech solution, to support math instruction in grades K-5. An innovative online math program that supports core instruction in the classroom or at home, DreamBox Math is independently proven by several third-party research organizations to increase math achievement. Discovery Education is the creator of essential PreK-12 learning solutions used in classrooms around the world. MISD is located in Collin County, Texas, and primarily serves students in the city of McKinney and in parts of New Hope, Allen, Fairview, Princeton, and Lowry Crossing. MISD currently enrolls more than 24,500 students in 20 elementary schools, five middle schools, three high schools, two alternative campuses, and one early childhood education center. MISD has a long-standing reputation for educational excellence, and the district is continually recognized at both the state and national levels. To continue MISD's tradition of academic excellence and to meet the goal of ensuring all students' access to a curriculum that addresses the needs of all learners and promotes student achievement and growth, district leaders sought an interactive, adaptive math resource. Following a careful review of potential solutions, MISD selected DreamBox Math by Discovery Education. Updated earlier this year with a host of improvements that empower teachers to create even more personalized learning experiences, DreamBox Math by Discovery Education adapts dynamically to the learner, providing tailored instruction within a highly engaging, gamified learning environment. DreamBox Math lessons are available in both English and Spanish and align to math standards in Texas. Along with actionable reporting and tools that empower differentiation for all learners, DreamBox Math offers teachers content-specific professional learning and provides administrators critical insights into student progress. With DreamBox Math, every student is empowered to independently engage in interactive problem solving so they can develop conceptual understanding, apply a variety of strategies, and gain competence and confidence in mathematical reasoning and skills. 'At MISD, we believe in the need for meaningful mathematical literacy. Math literacy empowers students to use math reasoning skills and habits of mind they develop to help support them in all areas of life,' said Sharon Sovereign, Elementary Math Coordinator. 'This literacy is based on two areas: procedural, or the mathematical procedures which promote efficiency and accuracy; and conceptual, which is a students' understanding of the ideas of how and why math works. DreamBox Math supports student understanding of both areas, and we are excited to see it integrated into classroom instruction.' DreamBox Math will be used alongside Discovery Education's Social Studies Techbook, and Experience solutions that are already integrated into instruction in MISD classrooms. MISD educators using DreamBox Math will receive dedicated professional development from Discovery Education's team of professional learning experts. These learning opportunities for teachers help schools recognize the full return on their edtech investment. Through Discovery Education's interactive professional development sessions, participants will learn best practices for integrating their new digital resources into instruction. Effective professional learning increases student engagement and supports the continued academic development of all students. In addition, all educators using Discovery Education's digital resources have access to the Discovery Educator Network. A global community of education professionals, the Discovery Educator Network connects members across school systems and around the world through social media, virtual conferences, and in-person events, fostering valuable idea sharing and inspiration. 'Discovery Education is proud to deepen its long-term relationship with McKinney ISD,' said Jamie Long, Discovery Education's Educational Partnerships Manager. 'McKinney ISD has long been at the forefront of efforts to enhance teaching and learning through the thoughtful application of innovative technologies, and Discovery Education is excited to be continue to support their efforts.' For more information about Discovery Education's award-winning digital resources and professional learning solutions, visit and stay connected with Discovery Education on social media through LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. ### About Discovery Education Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art, PreK-12, digital solutions support learning wherever it takes place. Through award-winning multimedia content, instructional supports, innovative classroom tools, and strategic alliances, Discovery Education helps educators deliver powerful learning experiences that engage all students and support higher academic achievement on a global scale. Discovery Education serves approximately 4.5 million educators and 45 million students worldwide, and its resources are accessed in over 100 countries and territories. Through partnerships with districts, states, and trusted organizations, Discovery Education empowers teachers with essential edtech solutions that inspire curiosity, build confidence, and accelerate learning. Explore the future of education at ContactStephen WakefieldDiscovery EducationPhone: 202-316-6615 Email: [email protected] Visit 3BL Media to see more multimedia and stories from Discovery Education

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store