Google Doodle today celebrates the 197th birth anniversary of Ada Lovelace, the popular 19th century mathematician and daughter of romantic poet Lord Byron. Lovelace is often described as world’s first computer programmer.
Born in 1815, Ada didn’t have a significant relationship with her illustrious father, who died when she was eight. As a young adult, Ada showed a lot of interest in mathematics, especially Charles Babbage’s work on the analytical engine. During 1842-1843, she translated an article by Italiam mathematician Luigi Menabrea on the engine, which she supplemented with a set of notes of her own. The notes contain what is dubbed as the world’s first computer program, an algorithm encoded for processing by a machine.
Impressed by Ada’s skills, Charles Babbage once called her the ‘Enchantress of Numbers’. The computer language Ada is named after her and a medal is awarded in her name by the British Computer Society. Check out more and interesting information about whom many consider as the mother of computer programming here.
Today’s Google doodle features Ada Lovelace writing computer codes with a quill pen seated on a desk and the paper scroll having algorithms, that forms the letters of the Google logo. With all the images and the words ‘Google’ looks like are written in a lace type font. Following tradition, clicking on the doodle would take the visitor to a Google Search results page for Ada Lovelace. Check out the doodle below: