Ada Lovelace
Thomas Edison is supposed to have said, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Here at Argonne we’re no strangers to putting in long hours in the service of our nation’s science and technology enterprise, but where does our inspiration come from?
Sometimes those who inspire us are our parents, or a mentor, or a colleague in the field; our inspiration can even be a historical figure. One such figure who has inspired me is Ada Lovelace, both a poet and one of the first computer scientists, whose contributions are celebrated each year on Oct. 11.
Ada had some mathematical training through her mother — unusual for a young woman of society in the early 19th century. That training enabled her to recognize the potential of an “Analytical Engine,” a small section of which was being demonstrated by irascible inventor Charles Babbage at a party she attended in 1833. Ada and Charles became lifelong friends.
In an account of Babbage’s machine, Ada wrote the first published description of a stepwise sequence of operations for solving certain mathematical problems and is often referred to as “the first programmer.” She also speculated that the Analytical Engine machine “might act upon other things besides number … the Engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.”
Jini and Ada
She is still inspiring scientists and engineers today, like Jini Ramprakash, User Experience Specialist Team Lead with the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility.
“She was way ahead of her time and her peers,” Jini says of Ada. “As a computer science and engineering major, I learned about Charles Babbage (fondly known as the Father of Computers) and the Analytical Engine as early as undergrad. I only learned of Ada Lovelace’s significant contribution toward my field of study much after grad school and well into my career. I think we, as computer science majors, should have learned her contribution towards computer science way back in undergrad.”
As we mark Ada Lovelace Day, please take some time to reflect on the people who have inspired you to take part in Argonne’s science and technology mission and to support the lab’s goals of answering the most important questions facing humanity.