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Byron and Babbage: A Calculating Story

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Keyword: Biography
Producer: Rosemarie Reed

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Women of Science:
Byron and Babbage: A Calculating Story

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This program portrays the life and times of Lovelace, a mathematician and daughter of Lord Byron. In 1843, Ada developed a set of instructions, or Notes, for mechanically calculating Bernoulli numbers, which became the basis of the first computer program... for a computer yet to be built. Her inspiration came from the drawings of the Analytical Engine, which her friend Charles Babbage -- a mathematician, analytical philosopher, and mechanical engineer -- was planning to construct. His calculating machine, never built during Ada's lifetime, is considered to be the first computer. Ada's comprehension that a machine's processes could translate into human thought processes became the very essence of artificial intelligence. In the US, special tribute has been paid to her contribution to computer science by the Department of Defense. Through the 1980s and 1990s, "Ada" has been the name of one its trademarks. When the DOD developed a computer language for its weapons system, they called it "Ada".

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