WEBVTT - How Ada Lovelace Constructed Her Wings 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:05.080 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:14.680 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. If you 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:18.880 are a seasoned listener of this podcast, you might remember 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:24.439 our episode on Villa Diodati and its inhabitants, One Fateful Summer, 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:29.840 Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron. If you're an 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:34.720 even more seasoned listener of this podcast, you might remember 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:39.559 our very early episode on Lady Caroline Lamb and the 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:45.560 quite literally fiery vengeance she orchestrated against her ex lover, 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:50.800 Lord Byron. This is another episode that is not actually 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.680 about Lord Byron himself, but I'm sure he would be 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.800 pleased to know we're going to begin by talking about 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:02.680 him yet again. Bye. In eighteen fifteen, the sixth Baron 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.760 Byron had made quite the name for himself. Outside of 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:12.039 his inherited title, he was famous in England and across 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:17.920 the continent for both his literary and romantic exploits. It 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:24.399 was Byromania, as dubbed by Caroline Lamb's cousin, Annabella Millbank. 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:29.360 Annabella was the daughter of a baronet and a poet herself. 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.080 She asked her cousin to pass along some of her 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:38.839 work to Caroline's famous Fling, and when she did, Caroline 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:43.559 suggested to Byron that Annabella might actually make a good 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:50.120 wife for him. Despite Byron's passion and reputation for sleeping 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.520 his way through the men and women of London society, 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.440 Byron needed to settle down ideally with an heiress to 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:04.480 remedy his growing debt, and so he courted Annabella. Annabella 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:09.640 had a reputation for being strict, chilly, and moral, which 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.560 made her a very odd match for the loose, sociable, 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:19.000 and decidedly less moral poet. He is a very bad, 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:25.320 very good man, Annabella once allegedly told her mother. When 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:30.200 Byron proposed, she first said no, writing him a summary 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:35.959 of his character to dictate exactly why. But eventually Annabella's 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:41.280 mind was changed and she said yes. Unfortunately, her first 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:45.960 instinct was the correct one. The marriage was doomed from 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:50.880 the start. In Annabella's twelve months married to Byron, she 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:56.120 endured abuse from her husband, constant harassment from his creditors, 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.600 and to top it all off, she would suffer the 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.400 human aliation of hearing that Byron was cheating on her 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:09.400 with his own half sister, Augusta Lee. Despite their problems, 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:13.880 the couple managed to have one child together. Byron had 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:19.160 expected a quote glorious boy and was initially disappointed when 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:24.960 Annabella gave birth to a daughter, Augusta Aida, named after yes, 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.280 exactly the half sister you might be thinking of. Ada 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:34.120 was born on December tenth, eighteen fifteen, and about a 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:38.600 month later, in the early hours of January sixteenth, Annabella 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.360 took her infant daughter from the home she shared with 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:47.280 Byron and left the marriage. Byron would never see his 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:52.360 wife or his daughter again. As Annabella raised her daughter 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.960 on her own, she was worried that Aida would inherit 0:03:56.040 --> 0:04:01.800 her father's poetic madness, and so she did discouraged imaginative 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:08.800 and literary pursuits, instead fostering a discipline for arithmetic and logic. 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.400 Ada would grow up to work with the mathematician Charles 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:19.920 Babbage on his proposed automatic computer, the Analytical Engine, and 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:24.159 she understood the potential of the project in ways even 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:29.120 her mentor did not. Ada wrote, quote, A new, a 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:33.679 vast and a powerful language is developed for the future 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:38.040 use of analysis in which to wield its truths, so 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.839 that these may become of more speedy and accurate practical 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.520 application for the purposes of mankind than the means throw 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.520 in our possession have rendered possible. Thus, not only the 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:55.159 mental and the material, but the theoretical and the practical 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:59.279 in the mathematical world, are brought into more intimate and 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:04.680 effective connection with each other. What Ada was recognizing was 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:10.320 the language and application of a computer beyond basic computing, 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:15.920 and today she is recognized by the scientific community as 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:21.080 the first computer programmer. It was, as she called it, 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:26.400 her approach of quote poetical science that allowed her to 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:32.960 recognize the potential of the relationship and communication between humans 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:39.039 and machines. In the end, Ada Lovelace's father's imagination and 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:45.560 her mother's logic would produce a pioneer. I'm Danish Schwartz 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:53.919 and this is noble blood. Is the girl imaginative? Is 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:58.880 she social or solitary? Taciturn or talkative? Fond of reading 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.960 or otherwise? And what is her tick? I mean her foible? 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:06.600 Is she passionate? I hope that Gods have made her 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:11.119 anything save poetical? It is enough to have one such 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.840 fool in the family. These are the words of Byron 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:18.359 in a letter to his half sister, asking about his 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:23.000 daughter Ada back in England while he was self exiled abroad. 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.680 Before Byron departed, he signed the deed of separation that 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:33.080 both effectively ended his marriage and gave Annabella full custody 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.599 of their daughter Ada, a rarity for the time. The 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:41.480 accusations against Byron of both sodomy and incest that were 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.640 spreading through England put Byron in no position to argue 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.839 for his parental rights. His only request was that Augusta, 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:53.080 his half sister, be allowed to keep him informed of 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.720 Ada's well being after he left the continent through Augusta. 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:03.720 Annabella replied to her stranged husband, quote her prevailing characteristic 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:09.400 is cheerfulness and good temper. Observation not devoid of imagination, 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:14.400 but it is chiefly exercised in connection with her mechanical ingenuity, 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:19.160 the manufacture of ships and boats, et cetera, prefers prose 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.920 to verse. These letters were written between the end of 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.560 eighteen twenty three and the beginning of eighteen twenty four, 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:31.200 when Ada was seven and eight. Annabella's letter would never 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:35.560 receive a reply because Lord Byron died in Greece in 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:40.440 April of eighteen twenty four. He never saw his daughter or, 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.880 as he once called her, the Electra of my Mycenaea. 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:48.720 Ever again, Aida only knew of her father's passing vaguely, 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.680 and she knew next to nothing about him as a 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:56.440 man or historical figure until much later in life. Back 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:00.080 when Annabella had separated from Byron in early eighteen te 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.680 teen sixteen, she had taken Aida to her parents' home 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:07.720 in Leicestershire, which was where she would be raised. Annabella's 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.239 parents had recognized their daughter's intelligence at a young age, 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.360 and they had hired a Cambridge professor to tutor her. 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:19.160 In turn, Annabella began her own daughter's education when she 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:24.200 was four years old. Annabella apparently possessed an Emily Gilmore 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:29.160 like tendency to fire tutors and governesses often if they 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:33.400 did not meet her expectations for her daughter's education, and 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.360 in the interim stretches between employees, she took charge of 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:42.720 AIDA's education herself. A system was applied to AIDA's education 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.319 that is not totally dissimilar from something you might see 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:51.280 in a children's school today. AIDA's good behavior, like paying attention, 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.800 applying herself to her lessons, and sitting still, was rewarded 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.600 with a ticket. Sitting still was the trickiest part for 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.240 young AGNs Aida. One of her early governesses, Miss Lamont, 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.760 wrote that her young charge reminded her of a reindeer 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:11.560 dashing about tickets could be confiscated when Aida did not 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:16.800 meet her mother's expectations. When that same governess ultimately left 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:22.800 her posts, she reflected quote, no person can be more rational, companionable, 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:27.560 and endearing than this rare child, before adding that Aida 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:32.440 would do almost anything to win her mother's praise. However, 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:36.439 AIDA's eagerness for praise didn't mean that her mother's pressure 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:41.080 was never met with resistance. Ada's rebellions could often prove 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:45.520 to be volatile. Once, when Aida couldn't stop fidgeting, a 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:50.280 housemaid was ordered to confine her fingers with black cotton bags. 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:55.400 The housemaid's attempt was met with a bite from the 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.880 then five year old young lady of the house. Ada 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.320 was sent to the corner to think about what she did, 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.240 and she spent that time angrily biting down on the 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.920 molding on the walls. At tea time, Ada was allowed 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:13.640 to return, and Annabella comforted her daughter by reading to her, 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:18.319 rather ironically, based on what we know some soothing poetry. 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.880 Ada was becoming prone to violent bouts like that, and 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:28.160 Annabella forebodingly sought as a sign of her separated husband's 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:33.120 cursed temperament coming through, Ada was becoming more like her 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:37.240 father in other ways. When she was eight, she invented 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:41.480 the word gobble book to describe her newly developed appetite 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:46.160 for reading. Around this time, her resistance to her schooling lessened. 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:51.240 She became a passionate student across her subjects, from arithmetic 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:54.720 to French to violin, the latter of which she often 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:59.160 played while circling the billiard's table as her daily exercise. 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.680 Her book about Aida and Annabella, the historian Miranda Seymour 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:08.280 recounts that Ada thought outside the box when it came 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:13.200 to her mother's rigid lessons. Aida quote built cities of 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:18.160 colored bricks and turned geography lessons into flights of fancy. 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.760 Could the waves in Norway really surge higher than her 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:26.760 own tall house? End quote. AIDA's relationship with her mother 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:31.720 continued to be a complicated one. Many historians view Annabella 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:37.440 as both overbearing and neglectful, while a smaller portion of 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:42.800 historians find her behavior unremarkable compared to other upperclass mothers 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:48.319 of the era. Ada was certainly isolated and undersocialized as 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.199 a child. Her mother was both obsessive about her daughter's 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:58.200 education and anxious about any potential exposure to illness. Ada 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:02.520 was also notably celebrity in her own right in England, 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:07.200 thanks to her father's fame and notoriety and his very 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:12.240 public separation from AIDA's mother, which only furthered the apparent 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:16.840 need for Aida to stay out of public view. AIDA's 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:21.760 dearest and arguably only friend was her beloved cat Puff, 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.160 though she also held a deep affection for her young 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:31.600 cousin George and promised him Puff's kittens. The accusations of 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:36.960 Annabella's neglectfulness come from the fact that as Aida got older, 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.960 Annabella began to spend more and more time away from 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:46.680 her daughter, visiting friends or taking rest cures for various 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.880 health complications. During these periods, Ada was left in the 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.280 care of her governess's tutors. And of course Puff, I 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:57.560 would be remiss if I didn't read you one of 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:01.000 the letters twelve year old Ada wrote about the varied 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.440 adventures of miss Puff. This one is to her mother 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.880 while her mother was away. Quote, your granddaughter Puff has 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.560 taken up all her kittens into a very nasty, dirty 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:15.160 hole in the roof of the house where nobody can 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.640 get at them. She stays with them all day long 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.600 and only comes down for her meals. I suppose their 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.520 bed is made of cobwebs, and I think that Puff 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:28.760 cannot have very refined taste. Around this time, something interesting 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:33.480 begins to appear in Ada's letters. Beyond Puff's living habits. 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:36.800 We first see it show up in a diary entry 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:41.280 from February eighteen, twenty eight quote, I am going to 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.760 begin my paper wings tomorrow, and the more I think 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.160 about it, the more I feel almost convinced that with 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:50.959 a year or so's experience in practice, I shall be 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.360 able to bring the art of flying to very great perfection. 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:59.280 I think of writing a book on flyology, illustrated with plates. 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.000 After giving her mother updates on Puff, AIDA's letters would 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.520 provide updates on her attempts to build wings and fly. 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:12.640 As you might imagine, progress was slow. Ada began to 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:17.760 sign her letters your affectionate young turkey or your carrier pigeon. 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.840 And it's not a stretch to wonder how much of 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:25.080 her desire to fly was spurred on by intellectual curiosity 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:29.280 and how much of it was connected to being isolated 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:33.520 and alone far from her mother. In a letter from 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:37.640 March that same year, Ada wrote, quote, since last night, 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:40.560 I've been thinking more about the flying, and I can 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.520 find no difficulty in the motion or distension of the wings. 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.240 I've already thought of a way of fixing them to 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:49.880 the shoulder, and I think that they might perhaps be 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.920 made of oil silk. And if that does not answer, 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.040 I must try to do what I can with feathers. 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:58.400 I know you will laugh at what I'm going to say, 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.160 but I'm going to take the exact patterns of a 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.880 bird's wing in proportion to the size of its body, 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.280 and then I am immediately going to set about making 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.800 a pair of paperwings of exactly the same size as 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:14.480 a bird's in proportion to my size. Aida goes on 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:19.280 to admit that she lacks information regarding bird anatomy, but 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.760 she has no interest in dissecting a bird to learn more, 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.000 and so she prevails upon her mother to send a 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.960 book on the subject. AIDA's dreams of flying were put 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.840 on pause not by her mother's disapproval, but by a 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:39.200 serious illness she came down with in eighteen twenty nine, Ultimately, 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:44.400 Ada was bedridden until mid eighteen thirty two. Save for 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:48.840 the occasional brief expedition in a wheelchair or on crutches, 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:54.240 that was AIDA's life from ages fourteen to seventeen, an 0:15:54.280 --> 0:16:00.160 exceptionally key period in any adolescence development. During this period, 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.440 Annabella and Ada relocated to a home just outside of 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:08.680 London to be closer to the best doctors and eventually 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:13.280 closer to society. Aida seems to have often been in 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:17.520 great pain, even finding sitting up to be difficult at times. 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.520 Her letters became less frequent during that period, and the 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.920 ones that were written are difficult to read because of 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:29.880 shaky penmanship. Quote this has been a sad irregular week, 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:34.120 reads one note to her tutor Monday. I missed nothing, 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.760 but was so desponding and despairing that I could have 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:42.280 cried with very great pleasure. It was during this time 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:48.640 that Annabella first introduced Ada to Lord Byron's poetry. Annabella's 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:52.360 choice for her daughter was a poem called fare the Well, 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.960 a poem in which Byron was directly addressing Annabella after 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:02.160 their separation. The poem includes the line when our child's 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.200 first accents flow, wilt thou teach her to say father. 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:11.760 Annabella also gave Aida selections from Byron's epic The Jiaur, 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.760 hopefully excluding the darker bits about being drowned in the 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:21.760 sea for infidelity. Ada's reaction was apparently lukewarm. On a 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:26.040 larger scale, the bedridden teen was given much more leeway 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.119 than she had ever been in regards to her reading, 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:34.160 and her imagination continued to grow. But shortly after Ada 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.200 was back in good health, her mother hired a new 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:42.479 tutor to refocus the now nearly adult AIDA's education on 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:47.040 arithmetic and religion. I should also note that this decision 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.720 was influenced by a brief stint in eighteen thirty three 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:55.480 in which Aida unsuccessfully attempted to elope with a young 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:59.639 man historians believe was her shorthand tutor due to a 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:04.480 record of his swift termination, although there is no definitive 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.679 proof about who the young man's identity actually was. The 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.520 young couple did not get very far. When Aida showed 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:17.240 up at her lover's family home, his parents swiftly returned 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:21.560 her to her mother, fearing the wrath of the famous Annabella. 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.919 Hence the addition of a heavy emphasis on religion in 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:30.240 the new curriculum. Ada was a dutiful student, but tried 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.000 to explain to her tutor that she was not interested 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.640 in arithmetic for its own sake, but rather for its 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:41.919 broader applications in capacities like physics. For those sorts of questions, 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:46.720 she found a supportive mentor in her mother's friend, Mary Somerville, 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.280 who just so happened to be one of nineteenth century 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:56.000 England's most brilliant scientific minds. It was Mary who that 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.760 same year would bring Ada to a party hosted by 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:09.960 one of her closest friends, Charles Babbage. Mary Somerville and 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:15.160 another Mary, Mary Mountgomery would prove to be great influences 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:19.800 on AIDA's intellectual growth. Two of her mother's closest friends 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.040 had taken the eighteen year old Ada under their wings 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:27.800 and encouraged her love of science. Mary Montgomery brought Aida 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:32.560 to lectures at intellectual hotspots like the Royal Institution, where 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:36.600 Ada learned of the latest development in geology, chemistry, and 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:41.640 natural philosophy, and the friendship of the Marys also allowed 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:47.080 Ada to attend one of the famous Saturday soires hosted 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.680 by Charles Babbage, for which in order to get an 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:56.320 invitation you needed to possess quote beauty, rank, or intellect, 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:00.000 at least as described by the wife of one science. 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:04.919 Ada had met the mathematician before through Mary Somerville, but 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.840 it was at one of his soires that the two 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:13.440 would form the beginnings of their ultimately history making working relationship. 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:17.159 Despite Babbage being a year older than AIDA's mother, the 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.040 two had a number of things in common. They had 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:23.280 both dealt with periods of intense illness in their youth, 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:27.120 and where Aida had attempted to craft wings to fly, 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.600 Charles had attempted to craft shoes to walk on water. 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.159 Both of those are very Leonardo da Vinci in the 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:39.080 movie Ever After, if you've seen it. When Aida and 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:43.000 Babbage met, he attempted to delight his young guest with 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:48.280 his Silver Lady automaton, but to his surprise, Aida was 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:53.360 instead interested in another invention. On display a small portion 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:58.840 of the steam powered computing machine Babbage had been ambitiously 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:03.520 trying to build four years. Another guest remarked how miss 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:07.520 Byron young as she was, understood its working and saw 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:11.680 the great beauty of the invention, Ada was consumed by 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.320 the idea of it. Quote, I'm afraid that when a 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.879 machine or a lecture, or anything of the kind comes 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.520 my way. I have no regard for time, space or 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:27.280 any other ordinary obstacle, Ada wrote to Somerville. Some months later. 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:31.199 Annabella saw some value in the machine, but she was 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:36.080 weary of her daughter's intense passion for it. Around this time, 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:39.960 Annabella had a friend provide her with a one hundred 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:45.320 percent scientifically sound nothing to question here phrenology reading of 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:50.640 AIDA's skull. As noted by Seymour, the reading quote confirmed 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:55.840 Lady Byron's fears. Her daughter's intelligence was considerable, but it 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.760 was of an impetuous and willful kind. Don't you hate 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:03.520 when the bumps on your skull reveal that? While Aida 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:07.359 continued to be under the tutelage of her mother's tutor, 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:12.240 Somerville and Babbage took on Aida as an unofficial pupil 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.919 as well. It was during this time that Babbage began 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:20.159 to conceptualize the machine that would ultimately come to be 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:25.760 known as Babbage's Analytical Engine. However, it was also during 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:30.320 this time that Aida began to show signs of extreme fatigue, 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:34.919 and she ultimately listened to Somerville's advice to take a 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:39.199 step back from her studies. What was a woman to 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:43.680 do with newfound free time, Why, of course, get married. 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:48.040 The match was set up by Somerville. Lord William King, 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:51.880 was a friend of her son from Trinity College, Cambridge, 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:57.520 ironically Byron's alma mater, and Lord William King fancied himself 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:01.400 something of a byronic figure. When he and Ada were 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:05.600 introduced at a ball, he found himself not just infatuated 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:09.639 with the legend of AIDA's late father, but with Ada herself. 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:12.960 They danced all night, and a few months later they 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:16.959 were engaged. The couple married in eighteen thirty five, and 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:19.800 while I don't want to dive too deeply into their 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:22.840 married life for the sake of time, I would once 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:25.479 again be remiss if I didn't share a portion of 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:29.520 AIDA's writing with you. Early in their relationship, the couple 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:33.320 apparently referred to each other with Avian nicknames, which I 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:38.320 find very sweet given AIDA's history with wings. William was 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:42.119 the crow, Ada was the bird, and they often called 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:46.840 AIDA's mother Annabella the hen. When a newly pregnant Aida 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:50.240 spent some time visiting her mother away from her husband, 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:54.640 she wrote to him with a new ornithological nickname, her 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:59.320 dear cock, I want my cock at night to keep 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:04.440 me warm. Absolutely no notes, Ada beautiful work. Your father 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:07.879 wishes he could have written something so beautiful and so poetic. 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:12.360 The kings were apparently a very good looking couple, and 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:15.680 very much not afraid to show how much they thought 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:19.159 that of each other. When Aida and William gave the 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:23.240 hen the honor of choosing the name of their newborn son, 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:29.040 it may surprise you to hear what Annabella answered Byron. 0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:33.640 Grace had come with the passage of time. Annabella held 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:37.159 more affection for her late husband as she aged, and 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:41.119 with Ada grown and married, it seems she feared less 0:24:41.160 --> 0:24:46.800 and less the risk of Byron's madness ruining her. A 0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:50.800 few years into the marriage, namely, when Princess Victoria became 0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:55.520 Queen Victoria in eighteen thirty seven, William and Ada became 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:59.880 the Earl and Countess of Lovelace, reviving a title from 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:03.320 Iron's side of the family that had become extinct a 0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:08.760 century prior. Ada was not particularly interested in being a countess, however, 0:25:09.200 --> 0:25:13.679 and by eighteen forty she sought to resume her intellectual pursuits, 0:25:14.160 --> 0:25:18.400 something she found her husband didn't quite share her passion for. 0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:21.520 Quote I hope you are bearing me in mind, she 0:25:21.600 --> 0:25:24.879 wrote in a letter to Charles Babbage that year, I 0:25:24.920 --> 0:25:29.000 mean my mathematical interests. You know this is the greatest 0:25:29.040 --> 0:25:32.360 favor anyone can do me. Perhaps none of us can 0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:36.480 estimate how great. Who can calculate to what it might lead? 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:41.040 Am I too imaginative for you? I think not. AIDA's 0:25:41.119 --> 0:25:45.520 dear mentor Mary Somerville, had recently relocated to Italy with 0:25:45.600 --> 0:25:48.959 her family as her health declined, and Ada was seeking 0:25:49.000 --> 0:25:53.840 a new tutor to guide her curiosity. Babbage connected her 0:25:53.920 --> 0:25:58.919 with Augustus de Morgan, the English mathematician now remembered for 0:25:59.000 --> 0:26:03.040 his formulation known as de Morgan's Laws. It was de 0:26:03.160 --> 0:26:07.040 Morgan who refined the now twenty four year old AIDA's 0:26:07.200 --> 0:26:13.240 mathematical potential. As an older student a married mother, Ada 0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:16.760 was learning how to dedicate herself to her improvement in 0:26:16.880 --> 0:26:21.840 practical ways, grasping, in her own words, quote the importance 0:26:21.960 --> 0:26:27.840 of not being in a hurry. Despite AIDA's newfound groundedness, 0:26:28.040 --> 0:26:32.160 she still couldn't shake her fascination with the analytical engine 0:26:32.640 --> 0:26:36.800 Babbage had been working on. In January of eighteen forty one, 0:26:37.000 --> 0:26:40.000 she wrote to Babbage, quote, you have always been a 0:26:40.119 --> 0:26:43.800 kind and real and most invaluable friend to me, and 0:26:43.880 --> 0:26:46.440 I would that I could in any way repay it, 0:26:46.760 --> 0:26:50.520 though I scarcely dare to exalt myself as to hope, 0:26:50.680 --> 0:26:54.119 however humbly, that I can ever be intellectually worthy of 0:26:54.160 --> 0:26:58.520 attempting to serve you. It was around this time that 0:26:58.560 --> 0:27:03.000 AIDA's mood began to show again, back within the realms 0:27:03.119 --> 0:27:07.120 of the mad and the poetical. She told de Morgan 0:27:07.520 --> 0:27:11.560 that the mathematical forms they were studying reminded her of 0:27:11.600 --> 0:27:14.880 the fairies she had read about in fiction. She wrote 0:27:14.880 --> 0:27:18.560 a letter to her mother that sounded not unlike those 0:27:18.680 --> 0:27:22.320 about flying as a youth, Only this time the letter 0:27:22.480 --> 0:27:26.359 was detailing her belief that she had intuited that in 0:27:26.400 --> 0:27:29.720 the future she would be able to build an apparatus 0:27:29.920 --> 0:27:33.239 that would allow her to see quote anything that a 0:27:33.280 --> 0:27:39.160 being not actually dead can see and know. It's possible 0:27:39.200 --> 0:27:42.919 that this bout of slightly delusional thinking was brought on 0:27:43.440 --> 0:27:47.320 by learning that her cousin Medora Lee was in fact 0:27:47.800 --> 0:27:51.680 her half sister, likely the product of Lord Byron and 0:27:51.840 --> 0:27:57.480 his half sister Augusta, and their incestuous relationship. Quote. I 0:27:57.520 --> 0:28:01.160 am not in the least astonished, wrote to her mother 0:28:01.320 --> 0:28:05.240 after the revelation quote in fact, you merely confirm what 0:28:05.359 --> 0:28:09.399 I have for years and years felt scarcely a doubt about. 0:28:09.640 --> 0:28:12.879 But should have considered it most improper in me to 0:28:13.040 --> 0:28:16.800 hint to you that I in any way suspected. Despite 0:28:16.840 --> 0:28:20.040 that cool reaction, in other writings, we can see that 0:28:20.119 --> 0:28:24.480 for Ada, learning that she was not in fact the 0:28:24.680 --> 0:28:29.320 Great Lord Byron's only heir, spurred in her a great 0:28:29.359 --> 0:28:34.240 need to prove herself, perhaps to surpass her father's achievements. 0:28:34.280 --> 0:28:38.280 She even considered turning to poetry quote it will be 0:28:38.360 --> 0:28:42.800 poetry of a unique kind, far more philosophical and higher 0:28:42.840 --> 0:28:46.040 in its nature than aught the world has perhaps yet seen. 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:50.000 End quote In regards to the incest of it all, 0:28:50.480 --> 0:28:54.960 Ada blamed Augusta more than her own father, imagining that 0:28:55.040 --> 0:28:59.360 she had been the instigator. Ada did find a way 0:28:59.400 --> 0:29:03.760 to publish poetry of a unique kind. In eighteen forty two, 0:29:03.920 --> 0:29:08.760 Luigi Frederico Menebrea, a professor of mechanics who ultimately became 0:29:08.840 --> 0:29:12.400 the seventh Prime Minister of Italy, published a paper on 0:29:12.560 --> 0:29:17.080 Babbage's analytical engine in French. The editor of a London 0:29:17.160 --> 0:29:21.440 based journal approached one of Babbage's friends regarding his want 0:29:21.520 --> 0:29:25.560 for a translation, and Aida was immediately referred to for 0:29:25.640 --> 0:29:29.080 the job. Despite being in bad health at the time. 0:29:29.240 --> 0:29:34.600