the notable C
HARLES
B
ABBAGE
(1791–1871) in his
design and planned construction of an “analytic
engine,” Lovelace outlined the principles needed in per-
forming mathematics on a machine and, in effect, was
the first person to ever write a computer program.
Daughter of the famous poet George Gordon, Lord
Byron, Lovelace was encouraged to study mathematics
by her mother, herself an adept mathematician. On
June 5, 1833, while attending a party, Lovelace met
Babbage and learned of his work on mechanical com-
putation. Fascinated by the topic, Lovelace visited Bab-
bage’s London studio 2 weeks later to see his first
machine, the “difference engine.” From that date on,
Lovelace worked as Babbage’s assistant on the develop-
ment of a superior device capable of receiving instruc-
tion and data from punch-cards, and able to perform
all possible types of mathematical operations.
European scholars at the time were writing com-
mentaries of Babbage’s work, and Lovelace took it
upon herself to translate French material into English.
In 1843 she published an annotated translation of a
work by Luigi Menabrea (1809–96), Notions sur la
machine analytique de Charles Babbage (Notes on
Charles Babbage’s analytic engine), in which, through
her extensive annotations, she effectively determined
the entire theoretical workings of such a machine. (This
material was not properly developed by Menabrea.)
Lovelace had, in fact, explained how to program a
machine to perform abstract mathematics.
On a philosophical note, Lovelace addressed the
pressing question of whether calculating machines
(computers) would ever be able to think. She argued
that machines will only ever be able to do what we
know how to order them to perform, and as such will
never be able to anticipate results or truths. The latter
point, she felt, is what constitutes “thinking,” whereas
the former does not. This argument has since become
known as “Lady Lovelace’s objection.”
Due to lack of funding, Babbage and Lovelace
were never able to complete construction of the new
engine. Lovelace’s work, nonetheless, is recognized
today as having correctly anticipated the theoretical
issues of computer science. She died in London, Eng-
land, on November 27, 1852.
lune A crescent-shaped figure in the plane formed by
two circular arcs is called a lune. Lunes were studied
extensively by H
IPPOCRATES OF
C
HIOS
in the fifth cen-
tury
B
.
C
.
E
. As a first attempt to solving the infamous
problem of
SQUARING THE CIRCLE
, he showed that it is
possible to square lunes of the type as shown in the
illustration below. (That is, Hippocrates outlined a
322 lune
Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace, assistant to 19th-century scholar
Charles Babbage, was the first to develop a theory of mechanical
computation and the first to write the equivalent of a computer
program. (Photo courtesy of the Science Museum,
London/Topham-HIP/The Image Works)
Lunes