Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, wrote extensive notes on Charles Babbage’s proposed Analytical Engine and recognized that such a machine could manipulate symbols as well as numbers.
Verified facts
Select a fact to see why it appears.
Overview
Ada Lovelace was a British mathematician and writer. Her best-known work grew from a translation of an article about Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, to which she added a much longer series of original notes.1
The Analytical Engine notes
Lovelace’s notes included a published algorithm for the proposed machine. She also described a broader possibility: that a general-purpose machine could work on symbols representing things beyond quantity, including music.1
Sources
- 1Ada Lovelace: visionary of the computer ageEditorially reviewed
Science Museum Group · Website · Retrieved 22 August 2026
This version will never be overwritten.
Every published change creates a new immutable revision. This page is currently showing revision b4c1f004.
Discussion and contribution workflows are opening in the next build phase.