college/Spring-2024/CS-1011/Assignment-1/Notes.org

* Price's Notes

- Responsible for researching =Most Important Contributions to Computer Science=
- For a group project detailing an important person in Computer Science history
- Based upon Stephen Wolfram's writing found [[https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2015/12/untangling-the-tale-of-ada-lovelace/][here]]

** Analytical Engine while she was alive

- Babbage never published serious account of Difference Engine or the Analytical Engine
- Babbage talked about the Analytical Engine in Turin in 1840 and a man named Luigi Menabrea took
  notes of his lecture
- Menabrea went on to publish the paper in French in 1842
- Ada saw the paper and chose to translate it to English and submit it to a British publication
  in 1843
- Ada took extensive notes of her own to add to the translation, the notes ended up being longer
  than the translation itself
- Ada exchanged /many/ letters with Babbage, she felt she was explaining Babbage's work, not
  discovering something
  - She only wanted to validate things with Babbage, got annoyed when Babbage tried to make his
    own corrections to her manuscript
  - She originally wasn't going to sign the translation or notes, she was convinced to do so by
    William King (her husband)
  - Signed it "AAL"
  - Saw herself primarily as an interpreter of Babbage's work
- Finished notes and translation at the end of July 1843
- Wrote to Babbage asking for him to join in bringing the Analytical Engine to fruition with her
  as a sort of CEO after writing her translation — she seemingly became wholly enraptured by the
  machine
- Unfortunately for Ada her health began failing her and the Analytical Engine had to be
  sidelined
- She died of cancer in November 27, 1852 at the age of 36

** Rediscovery of Her Work After Death

- In 1953 Bertram Bowden rediscovered Ada's work
- Researching for his book /Faster than Thought/ about computer he came across Ada's
  granddaughter who told him about Ada and showed him some of Ada's papers
- As more research was done difference engines and mechanical computer's were researched and
  inevitably so too was Babbage's Analytical Engine
  - Remember, Babbage's Analytical Engine's primary source was Ada's translation and notes she
    wrote about it

** Why is Ada important?

- Ada had some thoughts of what the Analytical Engine should be capable of — namely general
  computation
- She asked Babbage many times on how to achieve this general computation and distilled his
  likely extremely detailed answers to a clear explanation of the operation of the Analytical
  Machine
- She actually published and simplified ideas about the Analytical Engine — something that
  Babbage never did
  - If you scream and nothing hears it, did you really scream?
- Ada had a more developed abstract understanding of the Analytical Machine than Babbage
  possessed due to her work in creating her notes and translation about the Analytical Engine
- Due to this more developed abstract understanding, she had ideas of general/universal
  computation which are the hallmark of modern day computers
- Babbage only saw the Analytical Engine as a more efficient way of producing mathematical
  tables and just so happened to design a universal computer
- When writing about the Analytical Engine, Ada was trying to explain it as clearly as possible
  - To do this she had to look at the machine in a more abstract sense and this resulted in her
    seeing the machine as a gateway to universal computation
- She was seemingly the first recorded person to have ideas of universal computation in regards
  to machines
  - This is the most important element, the entirety of the modern world are built on the back
    of universal computation

** Is it possible Ada could have discovered modern computing had her health not failed?

- It's not far-fetched to say that if Ada had not died so early of cancer she likely would have
  played a major role in a mechanical machine capable of universal computation
- After creating the machine it's not a stretch at all that she might then create a new
  machine (or perhaps even the first machine) as an electromechanical device and thus being
  much closer to modern computers
- She and had a friend working with electronic communications, Charles Wheatstone who was
  involved with the creation of the electric telegraph
- Ideas around Binary were beginning to show up around Ada's time, but it wasn't well known

* Oscar's Notes

- Responsible for researching =Personal Life=
** Notes

Ada Lovelace (1815--1852), the Victorian-era mathematician daughter of the Romantic poet Lord
Byron. Ada Lovelace had a privileged existence but lived in a world where girls were limited in the
subjects they were taught, where young women were excluded from universities and where gender
stereotypes were rigidly enforced.

The aim of education for young women born into the aristocracy in the 17th and 18th centuries was to
make them as marriageable as possible. Therefore, young women were typically schooled at home, by
governesses or carefully selected tutors, in subjects such as languages, literature, and music.

Following the separation of her parents shortly after her birth, Ada was raised by her mother in an
environment that ran counter to the conventions of the day. Against tradition, Ada was schooled
rigorously in mathematics and science, on the basis of her mother's belief that this would protect
or insulate her against the madness Annabella believed to possess Ada's father, who she believed
(perhaps correctly) to be a dissolute and depraved individual as well as a romantic literary genius.

Ada possessed natural talents for language and numeracy but as a young woman of her time, she was
excluded from attending university. Instead she received further education and tutoring from a
variety of individuals, such as Mary Somerville, Augustus de Morgan and, perhaps most notably, the
inventor of the world's first theoretical computer --- the “Analytical Engine --- Charles Babbage.

Ada Lovelace, as a daughter of the 19th century, was certainly born into privilege and a
conventional “feminine” education would have been her birthright. However, while privileged and
wealthy, Ada's parents did not fit the stereotypes of the era, nor was her life to follow
convention. Ada's mother, Anne Isabella, known as Annabella, was intellectually gifted and had
received, unusually for a young woman of the time, an education that included science and
mathematics. As a consequence of her sharp mind (paired, presumably with her family wealth),
Annabella was a particularly appealing target for the romantic attentions of the poet Byron, who
named her his “Princess of the Parallelograms.” However, this was not a marriage of like minds or
shared values, and whether intended or unintended, a consequence of the union of Annabella and Byron
was the arrival of Ada Lovelace.

* Sean's Notes

- Responsible for reasearching =Career & Research=
- Price covered this base maybe a bit too well, it was decided that Price's notes covered this
  well enough that it would be redundant for Sean to make his own.
- Sean still contributed, he generated the video content and spent $70 of his own hard earned
  money to do so.