How Ada Lovelace Shaped Computing
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- December 10, 2012
Their daughter, Ada, inherited her father's mercurial temper, but her mother's mathematical skill. And it was fortunate she did so.
Today, Google is celebrating the 197th birthday of Ada Lovelace - considered to be the world's first computer programmer - with a homepage doodle that honors her contributions to computer science.
In 1835, Ada Byron married William King, her former mathematics tutor. King was later made the Earl of Lovelace, and Ada became known as the Countess of Lovelace; history, for some reason, attached “Lovelace” as her surname. Ada’s intelligence and social standing won her introductions to the leading minds of the day, and her friendship with scientific researcher Mary Somerville allowed her to meet the distinguished mathematician Charles Babbage, whose descriptions of a Difference Engine and, later, the Revolutionary Analytical Engine, essentially created the first computer.
But it was Lovelace’s translation of Luigi Menebrea’s account of the Analytical Engine that brought Lovelace fame. While the translation was admirable enough, it was Lovelace’s “notes” at the end - a dissection of the Engine’s potential as operation, as well as the first “computer program” describing how to use it - that justifies her place in history. Lovelace also had the lucky fortune of providing a scientific “exclusive,” - Babbage was reluctant to publish much on his invention, leaving Lovelace’s work to stand largely alone.
In some ways, Lovelace’s contributions to science mirror German actress Hedy Lamarr, who co-invented the early process of spread-spectrum communications, which uses frequency hopping to prevent interference among wireless communications. Unlike Lamarr, whose claim to fame was really as a film actress, Lovelace was well respected as a mathematician first and foremost.
According to Wikipedia, Ada Lovelace had three children, and had amassed considerable gambling debts before dying from cancer on Nov. 27, 1852. For more on her contributions, click through to the slideshow.
Do your characters have as much going on as these real women: Hedy Lamarr and Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace?
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Ever cool Ms. Hedy Lamarr a computer programmer, too. Told you, I love you Hedy!!!
Frequency-hopping spread-spectrum invention
Antheil and Lamarr submitted the idea of a secret communication system in June 1941. On August 11, 1942, US Patent 2,292,387 was granted ... This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88
frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for
enemies to detect or jam....The idea was not implemented in the USA until 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during a blockade of Cuba after the patent had expired....
In 1998, Ottawa wireless technology developer Wi-LAN, Inc. "acquired a 49 percent claim to the patent from Lamarr....
Lamarr's and Antheil's frequency-hopping idea serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as Bluetooth, COFDM used in Wi-Fi network connections, and CDMA used in some cordless and wireless telephones....
Lamarr wanted to join the National Inventors Council, but was reportedly told ... she could better help the war effort by using her celebrity status to sell War Bonds. [Ovarian prejudice, folks]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr#Frequency-hopping_spread-spectrum_invention
Does Ms. Hedy look familiar to you?
For several years beginning in 1997, the boxes of CorelDRAW's software suites were graced by a large Corel-drawn image of Hedy Lamarr. The picture won CorelDRAW's yearly software suite cover design contest in 1996. Lamarr sued Corel for using the image without her permission. Corel countered that she did not own rights to the image. The parties reached an undisclosed settlement in 1998.[20][21]
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Hedy Lamarr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6247 Hollywood Blvd.[22]
