The Brilliant Mind of Ada Lovelace: Victorian Countess & Computer Programmer

[@jmnaras]

I'm studying CS in college now. Sometimes I feel like I don't belong in a class or event because I'm one of the only girls. But then I remember Ada Lovelace and how what I'm studying wouldn't have existed without her and I feel much better.

[@pabloherrera8626]

Hows life 8 years later?

[@liftedup299]

@Laura Kay How are you guys here after 8years!?!?!???

[@nikkasagcal721]

how are you miss ma'am?

[@wheatonrecurrence9525]

Yeah how are you doing

[@liftedup299]

@Laura Kay Can't believe that's one month already. 😭😭

[@shanrocks777]

Ada Lovelace is such a poetic name. It sounds more like a romance novelist's pen-name than a mathematician. No wonder her father was Lord Byron.

[@Money3Mek]

She married count of Lovelace

[@DaDarthDoc]

Imagine how she would react to today. Wow. Just wow.

[@windstorm1000]

she's d be floored! and very, very proud she was part of it all!

[@BensCoffeeRants]

Checkout Great Minds with Dan Harmon

[@yummychips_]

she'd laugh, cause she probably expected us to reach farther by now.

[@sagestrings869]

Show her FORTNITE

[@IoniB]

@@sagestrings869 exactly lmao :D

[@ADyingFaith]

What a wonderful title to hold The Enchantress of Numbers.

[@mancan1531]

Lynda Murray I agree

[@MaggieCandy999]

Lynda Murray yeah, someone should really write a bio flick of her and that should be the title.

[@zes3813]

wrr

[@ADyingFaith]

@@zes3813??

[@kristianrjsYT]

I'm reading a book about Ada called The Enchantress of Numbers. It was written by Jennifer Chiaverini, I'd strongly recommend it to anyone interested in her story and her work.

[@solafaghoneim8987]

The Enchantress of Numbers I absolutely love her title. It simply reflects how much passion she had towards her work, just like many other scientists.

[@savagegardenrox]

I just wanted to say that I love how many Great Minds episodes have looked at female scientists. Thanks SciShow!

[@reisbob7786]

Hannah Shoshana ii

[@ASLUHLUHC3]

@Glenn Goryl Very weirdly worded

[@moristar]

It's so emotionally mind-blowing, how people had a vision of something that was yet to come in far away future. Great episode. Great scientist.

[@rachelbrain]

She's been a hero of mine since high school and a huge inspiration for me to pursue a career in computer programming. If I ever have a daughter, her middle name will be Ada.

[@TheMasonX23]

All of that by the age of 36, if she'd lived longer, we'd have AI by now. Damn cancer.

[@Ultrox007]

Ovarian cancer too.

[@FlorenceFox]

Uterine cancer, actually, but close enough.

[@xovotv5906]

We have AI tho

[@bosteador]

Xovo TV we have machine learning.

[@dylanmiyashiro1682]

Xovo TV Good job on the 6 year late comment.

[@ghastor1393]

I'm beginning to detect a theme: everyone dies of cancer

[@SeaJay_Oceans]

Ironic, since cancer is errors in the code and functioning of the DNA that runs our WetWare... cells glitching out of control.

[@TiaShelley]

Seeing Ada Lovelace here today has definitely made my afternoon. She is my frakking hero. I second the nomination for Grace Hopper!

[@mommakeeks4265]

My daughter was doing a paper on Ada Lovelace. She watched your video but complained that you spoke too fast. So we replayed it at 0.75X. It was so bizarre but also hilarious because you sounded a bit inebriated. But she was able to follow along much better. Highly recommend it for giggles. Thank you so much as always for wonderful content. Much appreciated

[@BasBleu02]

She's a hero of mine, too. While already a "non-traditional" (read: old) student of CS, I heard her mentioned in passing in a lecture and did some research. She fascinated me ... what an intellect! How she influenced the men that people took seriously ... ahhhh! :-)

[@VerbalMurderGaming]

Shame she didn't do anything with that "knowledge" and instead took notes for an old pervert that also didn't do anything of substance.

[@BasBleu02]

The women of her day were educated in languages, handicrafts, music and polite conversation. Her father died when she was a young child, so the kudos go to her mother, Anne, who chose to use Byron's money and influence to provide a highly unusual education for her daughter.

[@pasapdub]

THANKS! She's one of my daughter's heroes.....mine too, now. Glad you introduced her to a new fan group!

[@ajliff]

At last thank you! She is one of my inspirations along with Marie Currie

[@roses7400]

Interesting how both her and her father made such impacts on the modern world in entirely different areas. They also both died at 36. What a great woman.

[@matthewlaurence3121]

I find fault with some of the information in this video: 0:48 the part about Byron encouraging his daughter to pursue a career in science. He had next to nothing to do with her, hating his unfortunate wife and mistreated for no reason beyond the fact that he was depressed, fleeing England to escape arrest and prosecution, when Ada was a baby and dying abroad when she was 8 years old.

[@TheBirdiebnd]

Thank you for showing that young women really can be exceptional at the "hard" sciences like mathematics and chemistry. I hope all young women look to women like Ada for encouragement to achieve great things in fields still dominated by men!!!

[@AnthonyMcqueen1987]

As a programmer I know she is and respect what she did and discovered. All I know if she didn't create algorithms etc we wouldn't have all the tech most ppl take advantage today. She is a legend most of the great programmers in history are women.

[@rachel2426]

@Jaxa Taxa ... she created algorithms as in she wrote computer algorithms... she didn't invent the concept of algorithms lol i would think that's pretty obvious

[@nezmustafa4271]

so she wrote them and didn't create them like the guy above said. justsayin

[@herbie_the_hillbillie_goat]

It's tragic to me that we put so much stock in one person. If X hadn't done Y, we wouldn't have Y'. As if no one else could ever do Y. Out of all humans in all time, only X is capable of Y. We do this every time we say that we owe something to some particular inventor. Hogwash!

[@shazam314]

You're clearly wrong. And you don't sound like a programmer at all.

[@KingdomOfDimensions]

Thanks for the information. This doesn't change the fact that she's somewhat lesser known. And I say this because, as you have mentioned, most programmers know about her. That's not the most common of people. I take great interest in many scientific fields and I had only heard her name mentioned once or twice, much less actually known how great her contributions were. My point is this: For the vast majority of us non-programmers, this video was probably very enlightening.

[@NickBriz]

Great Video!!! :D ...one tiny edit ^__^ Babbage never asked Ada Lovelace to translate Menabrea's Italian report on the analytical engine, she took it upon herself to translate ( and improve ) it, then showed Babbage a draft like BAM && he pooped himself with enthusiasm ( source: Gleick, the Information pg 115 ), i sound nit-picky i know ☛ but i think it illustrates how large+in+charge she was ☛ "I believe myself to possess a most singular combination of qualities exactly fitted to make me pre-eminently a discoverer of the hidden realities of nature..." - Ada Lovelace, she doesn't ask for permission ❤

[@AnnaRussett]

yes! :-)

[@mohamedachanie6003]

dgmmp jd awmj aajmapawtwtj a

[@Aster_Risk]

Thank you for pointing that out!

[@Twohomst]

+

[@kenshikenji]

too bad babbage wrote the program for her. he even said so. lol

[@KreeZafi]

I'm studying computer science at university, and learning about Ada Lovelace really added some much needed spark to my motivation to study!

[@adal9478]

My name is Ada . My dad was a computer engineer and named me after Ada Lovelace. Glad to know where my name came from!

[@IndogaKirai]

Ask your father of Grace Hopper wasn't good enough

[@lonewolfang]

This is the first time I've heard of her and I have to say, she was awesome!

[@Ultrox007]

+lonewolfang she also didn't write the program, Luigi Menebrea did, Ada translated it. Still great at math, but not worthy of the title given to her in order to encourage women to apply for stem due to a 2011 initiative.

[@rachel2426]

+TrueWOPR Menebrea did not write a program to compute Bernoulli numbers in his paper about the Analytical Engine. Ada wrote the Bernoulli number program as an example of applications of the engine, and appended it as one of the 7 notes she wrote to elaborate on the machine's possibilities.

[@rachel2426]

Menebrea only mentioned Bernoulli's Numbers as an example of something the engine could compute : "There are certain numbers, such...the Numbers of Bernoulli, &c., which frequently present themselves in calculations. To avoid the necessity for computing them every time they have to be used, certain cards may be combined specially in order to give these numbers ready made into the mill, whence they afterwards go and place themselves on those columns of the store that are destined for them." (from Ada's translation).

[@Ultrox007]

Rachel Feltes [citation needed] and this still doesn't explain my second point, that the only reason we're hearing about Ada lovelace is because of a 2011 initiative to "encourage women to apply for stem" [citation: www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/crowdsourcing-gender-equity ]

[@extrams0]

Being a (male) software engineer who has received his eductation signifcantly before 2011, I knew of her. And I am far from the only one: - It was her the programming language Ada was named after (1980). - The Lovelace Medal predates 2000 Before 2011, She wasn't some footnote in some dusty old tome. So if you complain you only know about her because of some 2011 initiative, that only shows how much the initiateve was needed. If nothing else, at least it educacted you?

[@chheinrich8486]

Smart to the point of prophetic, rich, and if the painting is anything go by, damn good looking, this women hit the jackpot

[@yugij0319]

"Enchantress of numbers" - "Say 9 again, baby"

[@BensCoffeeRants]

NEIN!

[@Christopher-N]

@@BensCoffeeRants: Your retort is better than the joke. ^_^

[@BensCoffeeRants]

@@Christopher-N Thank you. I'm finally getting some recognition after 2 years. :)

[@sans0465]

​@@BensCoffeeRantslol

[@BensCoffeeRants]

@@sans0465 5 Years now, I hope someone comments again after NEIN long years!

[@ovilondon3589]

Ada to the moon!

[@BasBleu02]

I asked for a Great Minds episode about Ada Lovelace, and you did it!!! (Not imagining I was significant, but I'm grateful nonetheless and still grinning and happy-dancing in a nerdy kinda way!) Maybe an episode about Grace Hopper? Her visual description of a nanosecond on network television was truly enlightening ... her unlikely story even more so. I'd love to know more about her, too ... please? Please?

[@disdainbrook]

I wish I could like SciShow Great Minds videos a hundred thousand times, because they are always awesome. I really love learning how women and other minorities contributed to science and technology.

[@ReturnOf2008]

As a woman computer scientist and someone who is obsessed with KZbin; I love this :)

[@elynorliu1802]

Talking about female scientists, Hypatia of Alexandria is like the mother of female mathematicians. Have a scishow about her would be fun. Great video. :-)

[@SOSifymaybe]

I always imagine how it would be to be one of these great minds, and watch videos of how awesome you were some 200 years after your death.

[@Stay_For_Life_XO]

I’m acc so lucky bc I live in the EXACT same town as Ada Lovelace - in fact, my great-great grandparents were really good friends with her. Now, I live around 5 mins away from their old family home, which was sadly destroyed a few years back ❤❤

[@endalegebregiorgis6337]

Wait what why do they all die of cancer

[@Missteree87]

Awesome! Ada Lovelace rocked!

[@Samantha_yyz]

Funny side note, "De Morgan cautioned the countess against studying too much mathematics, because it might interfere with her child bearing abilities" - Mathematics for Computer Science chap 1

[@flitzgerald7984]

Wtf?!!

[@Samantha_yyz]

@@flitzgerald7984 Yuuup, well you know math, that there is man's work, her dur de dur A lot of women in science went through stuff like that, and like Lovelace weren't given credit for their work until later if at all.

[@xanecrown4545]

Ada Lovelace, one of my personal heroes! I really enjoy science show and this just makes me love it all the more. Apologies if this sounds like a twitter post.

[@paoloangelino24]

Cardano's ADA token is also named after her. :)

[@ZergforLoser]

This is probably the most useful and informative channel I can ever subscribe in youtube.

[@OldieBugger]

Someone named a programming language "ADA". Too little, too late.

[@twiggy120]

I've been ranting about this for the last few days. And it's the fraking 50th pre-anniversary! Yet no one seems to care. Thank you. x

[@husnshujaat2985]

She's my birthday twin

[@Elzonite]

My english book of all things brought me here. To my surprise I was always subscribed and had already watched the video beforehand when it came out

[@RworldKM]

"Making pieces of music of any complexity or extent." What would Lovelace say if she'd knew not only does that statement prove true, but we went one step further by giving the music a computerised personification that we know today as Vocaloid? One of which, had made a pretty large influence in Japanese sub-culture?

[@cloverhighfive]

It's nice to see her talent was acknowledged in her lifetime. Enchantress of numbers... :)

[@ChristianTamblyn]

Suggestion for a Great Minds video: Emmy Noether.

[@StormiidaeBlogspot]

Love these videos highlighting the contributions of women to science, mathematics and engineering in a time before women in general had access to education.Still a long way to go as commenter rabbitwho points out, but I find these early female pioneers quite inspiring.

[@amylunamanderino6899]

Great video, thanks! "Enchantress of Numbers"...another example of men needing to romanticize/sexualize the intelligence of women. Can you imagine calling Einstein the "Seducer of Space/Time?"

[@jgaz10]

Barbara McClintock (1983 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine)--discovered genetic transposition. Worth a SciShow nod.

[@windstorm1000]

ladies and gentlemen--the great great grandmother of the computer--is Ada Lovelace--who saw the potential of a machine that could go past a number crunching model--the computer algorythem--into symbols--Brilliant! Her father would have been so proud of her! really what we are typing here is in part Ada Lovelace---she had no laptop, no anything but theory of her fellow mathmattician Charles Burbage--but she went beyond him in theory which, of course, became fact ala IBM, Steve Jobs, etc

[@simongross3122]

She's one of my heroes. A true visionary.

[@KakashiOwnage]

She was smart, And really pretty!

[@CarissaCords]

This is my favorite scishow video!

[@toastedroses]

I'm doing a giant research project on Ada right now and this basically sums up my six months worth of work in three minutes.

[@Ultrox007]

+Lianna Weiksner Funny how people keep leaving out that Luigi Menebrea wrote the program and Ada just translated it, but was given credit for it in 2011 due to an initiative started to "encourage more women to apply for STEM jobs" even though women are already hired 2:1 compared to men...

[@rachel2426]

+TrueWOPR yeah people probably "leave out" that part because it is not true. From Charles Babbage's biography: "I then suggested that she add some notes to Menabrea’s memoir, an idea which was immediately adopted. We discussed together the various illustrations that might be introduced: I suggested several but the selection was entirely her own. So also was the algebraic working out of the different problems, except, indeed, that relating to the numbers of Bernoulli, which I had offered to do to save Lady Lovelace the trouble. This she sent back to me for an amendment, having detected a grave mistake which I had made in the process."

[@Ultrox007]

Rachel Feltes [citation needed]

[@extrams0]

Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, By Babbage himself.

[@Khai-MediaCo]

MENABREA DID NOT write the program: whilst presenting in Turin, Italy, Babbage's notes on his ANALYTICAL ENGINE were taken by Menabrea, and it was Lovelace who translated (no small fete, in and of itself) the Italian notes (back) into English for Taylor's "Scientific Memoirs" publication ... LOVELACE, expanding upon the notes given to her, WROTE ADDITIONAL ALGORITHMS, which were not figured out by Babbage (nor the note-taker, Menabrea) prior to her involvement ... Ergo, SHE is the one who is justly deemed as the "!st COMPUTER PROGRAMMER".

[@tenou213]

Love this series so much.

[@rumbledoll100]

I am actually related to ada and I’m very epic :}

[@supersonictumbleweed]

This video is even more amazing a decade later

[@IsaScience]

my school is named after her father. Byron College. We celebrate his birthday every year by placing a wreath next to a statue that was built after the Greeks won their independence. It is in Greece. Be jealous. Very jealous.

[@ladyofdevices800]

***** Damn you haha

[@canine224]

Ada Lovelace was awesome; glad she is getting recognition on here.

[@therongertz3570]

I understand the appeal, but Ada Lovelace is a little overhyped as a thinker. Her thoughts on how computers would work, or even how her programs would work, were wrong by today's standards, at the very least because it didn't include anything similar to how transistors create boolean 1s and 0's to create and store information. She created a decent set of vague logical instructions (and even a decent for" loop); though, you have to keep in mind that logic had been taught in schools--including where she got her very expensive, exclusive education--for decades and is not the hard part of computing anyway. Her thoughts on textiles as a way of creating visuals for computer graphics sound prescient and awesome until you realize they would have never worked. Overall, how impressive Ada Lovelace is depends on how much leeway you give her for pretty vague, irrelevant ideas (plus the fact that Charles Babbage didn't respect her in the first place).

[@chamdabber6899]

Oh my god Hank Green was so young

[@icedragonair]

Always the same story. As soon as theres a woman who was historically a pioneer in science, the debate starts up on how much of the work should actually be attributed to them, and maybe the men in their life actually did it. Women barely got any credit as it is, a lot of that was then stolen and presented as their own by their male contemporaries and now historians are debating about whether they deserve what little remains. Why is this still a thing? How are we still not past the idea that women are basically incapable of intelligent thought in anything other than a social context. Doesn't it strike people as a bit weird that its claimed EVERY single one of the hundreds of historical women who made great discoveries was somehow some kinda fluke or misunderstanding or partial hoax?

[@paytonyoung1740]

Truly incredible, that she was able to accomplish all of this in only 36 years. So sad that she could not live a full life.

[@johnbaker7102]

Meh she is pretty overrated. Babbage did all the work and Ada merely translated it and added notes which were interpretation on his work after constantly exchanging letters where he would explain how the machine worked. And before this Babbage had previously written “programs”, which is used loosely to describe what one of Ada’s notes were which by the way she herself mentions is based on a “program” that Babbage already created. Let’s not try to make revisionist history with the lenses of today’s woke culture please. We have to give credit where credit is due, Babbage is largely to thank. Ada was more of a idealist/author than a “computer programmer”

[@chattingesque372]

🙏🏻

[@AnneloesF]

Yes!!! Love Ada Lovelace and love that you did a SciShow all about her! She is one of my hero's.

[@kenshikenji]

too bad babbage actually wrote the program. he even said he wrote it for her but she found a bug. she was a fraud and a manipulator of great men

[@valmid5069]

“Oh Ada, you don't need a preview. You'll figure it out before anyone. The first to see the potential in things like that, to work out what could be. What they can really do. Computers start with you. Sweet dreams, Ada Lovelace...” -Dr Who

[@redsaliba7545]

im researching on 100 women , from the book 100 stories for rebel girls and I just started on Ada Lovelace thank you for this good video even though it confused me a little with the complicated words

[@The_Order_Of_William_Marshal]

True. I was mainly referring to the main channel. Love their Leanbacks as well.

[@NoyzBot]

Featured on adafruit dot com! Amazing woman she was. I will be naming my next rig "Lovelace"

[@dragonfly1102]

i think it's awesome they're covering the things /most of us never heard of/ rather than the things you usually hear about at school

[@pzever]

The Italian mathematician who wrote a description of Babbage machine was Luigi Menabrea. Why don't you make an episode of Scishow great minds on him?

[@ConaviusSirLonglegs9]

I wish this was the most subbed channel on KZbin. The world would have a brighter future.... Pun kinda intended..

[@sassafras_smith]

Yeah, it's awesome. There is a whole section dedicated to it in her biography, but the wiki article on her gives a good mention on it as well. Some of her drawings based on her observations are still in print and used in books on mycology today. She is an infinitely more interesting person than one might remember her to be from our childhoods.

[@anniegordon437]

I'd like to see a video about Jane Goodall. She focused more on the behavioral/psychological sciences, but her methods of study were extraordinary.

[@PixelCortex]

Yes, wtf, how has this not been done yet?

[@TheFatCatMovies]

LOVE LOVE LOVE Ada Lovelace!

[@drvince0725]

Wow how smart must she have been to be able to come up with that

[@MrValdasJ]

Dennis Ritchie. Father Of C programming language and co-creator of UNIX OS on witch Ubuntu, mint, Mac OS 10 and many more were built. deceased but his legacy remains and is one of the most influential computer scientist of our time that reshaped how computing is done and sadly one of the most unrecognized.

[@Gansimus]

Great video! It's sad how far computers have come in nearly 2 centuries and yet we have over paid patent lawyers fighting over who gets to use the "slide to unlock" gesture on your smart phone :(

[@johnveriloyson6639]

Our section has her name. Now I can proudly call our classroom "The Students of the Enchantress of Numbers."

[@mrclueuin]

Consider my mind blown! Here's something to return the favor....I first heard about her on an episode of 'Cyber Chase', a show on PBS that helps kids understand math. Inception!

[@kanishk7267]

The threads of history. Extraordinary.

[@drditup]

AWESOME! i program in ada and i didn't really have a clue who this ada from lovelace was, and wasn't intrested in googling myself. however, its intresting to hear scishow so THANK YOU! great one!

[@Fastlan3]

Hypatia (AD 350- 415) was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher in Roman Egypt who was the first well-documented woman in mathematics. As head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, she also taught philosophy and astronomy. She was of the intellectual school of the 3rd century thinker Plotinus.

[@FuzzyPurplePickle]

This couldn't have come at a better time, we're doing a project on the history of computers. I have to say I'm finding it very interesting, Ada Lovelace was amazingly ahead of her time.

[@YasmineStarKangaroo]

Her name sounds awesome, and her ideas were even awesomer.

[@damnerd]

Ada Lovelace is awesome. Thanks for this video.

[@UnitZER0]

Four relatively unknown inventors whose inventions we still use in some form today: Jan Ernst Matzlinger, Granville T. Woods, Fredrick Mckinley Jones, and Madame C. J. Walker

[@MichaelZola]

great woman of history. her story is fascinating, and truly prominent of her time.

[@elisedoan7089]

I love Ada. She is a huge role model for me.

[@DaveCPlue4]

I'm really glad I stumbled across your show. Please keep up the great work! :)

[@TheMcfeegle]

Ada Lovelace is my favorite.

[@malakai2012]

people like her is the reason i suspect that someone or something has been leaving clues of the future or otherwise helped us along when gifting people with amazing ideas way ahead of their time

[@BehrInMind]

I have comment/suggestion. Keep uploading videos, I absolutely love SciShow!

[@Demontripelt]

Fission is splitting, Fusion is combining, we do Fission for bombs and nuclear power plants using the energy released in the decay of unstable isotopes to heat things, the sun does Fusion, taking the energy released from small amounts of mass being destroyed (hard to explain in a single comment) to produce a much larger amount of heat.

[@nuripadudi]

I'm into coding at age of 29. I was inspired by Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, and Lisa Su. ❤

[@annemakerofhats]

Been waiting for something on Lovelace for ages! Thanks, Hank!

[@KainyStyle]

Thank you, I'll check it out!