0:00:06.373,0:00:14.014
>> Tonight's lecture is part of a published lecture series on women in leadership.

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This is an ongoing program, as you know,

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and it was designed to showcase

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prominent and successful women in leadership.

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And in leadership positions, actually.

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In an effort to motivate[br]the next generation of women leaders.

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We launched this last year,

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and the series aims to bring

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distinguished women researchers,

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scholars and leaders

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in science, engineering, and business,

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to share their experiences

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to the Stevens community,

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and since we're videotaping this,

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beyond the Stevens community.

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The thought is to inspire community.

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To inspire not only our female faculty and students,

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but the entire community.

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It is important, because if you --

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see, these are the things[br]I'm going to be mentioning --

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we're not doing such a great job

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in having women in STEM positions.

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It is relevant today, this topic of STEM.

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Despite our awareness of how important STEM fields are for our future,

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and we can call upon numbers,

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such as 80% to 85%, depending on who you listen to,

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of our GDP depends directly -- [br]directly -- is related to technology.

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And if you look at the number of people that produce the technology, it's less than 4%

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of the workforce in the United States.

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So the importance of technology and STEM education is extremely important.

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But if you've seen, a couple weeks ago,

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the New York Times Magazine published an article,

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where the title was:

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Why Are There Still So Few Women In Science?

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I don't know if you've seen it.

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>> Yes.

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>> There's a very dramatic picture in front.

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The picture -- which essentially -- a 1927 picture,

0:02:32.415,0:02:40.944
that was taken on the occasion of a Solvay Conference on physics,

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which brought up 29 prominent scientists,

0:02:45.035,0:02:54.837
physicists, 17 of whom either had [br]or were about to get -- I think it was -- a Nobel Prize.

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and only one out of the 29 was a woman.

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And those of you that read the article, probably --

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who do you think it was?

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Anybody?

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>> Marie Curie.

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>> Right.

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So...

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Today, current data [br]do not paint any better a picture.

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A recent study by the [br]National Science And Math Initiative

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revealed that only 30% of Bachelor degrees [br]in engineering are held by women.

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23% of workers in STEM-related jobs are women,

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despite the fact that they make up [br]48% of the workforce.

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And the higher you go up the corporate ladder,

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the less and the lower those percentages become.

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According to another report by the National Center [br]of Women In information Technology,

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women hold just 9% of the IT management positions,

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and account for only 14% of the senior management positions in Silicon Valley, the startup world.

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All told, it's more imperative than ever now

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that we provide a forum to showcase the accomplishments of women leaders in this field,

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and we hope that others will inspire us

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and will inspire the next generation.

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I'm confident that it is because of the efforts[br]of women like Valerie Aurora,

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that we have with us today,

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that this goal will be achieved.

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So as many of you know,

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Valerie is with us today as a keynote speaker

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for the daylong conference organized by [br]the College of Arts and Letters,

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that was devoted to celebrating[br]the accomplishments of Ada Lovelace,

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a truly remarkable woman of her own right.

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Ada is considered to be the very first[br]computer programmer,

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and said to be the inspiration behind

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much of the computer technology that has[br]become a routine for us today.

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Ms. Aurora has drawn inspiration

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from the life and works of Ada Lovelace,

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in founding The Ada Initiative,

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a not-for-profit organization that seeks

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to increase the participation of women in open technology and to advance women's literacy

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in the technology sector.

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Today, The Ada Initiative reaches 2 million leaders

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and emerging professionals in the tech sector and related fields, through various outreach efforts,

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that have been supported in part by Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, Bloomberg,

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the Linux Foundation, and Twitter.

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In addition to serving as the Executive Director [br]of the Ada initiative,

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Valerie has also invented [br]several new file system concepts,

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including relative datetime and power saving features in file systems widely used in Linux, Mac OS X,

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Solaris, and OpenBSD.

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She served as senior software engineer at IBM, Intel...[br]IBM, Intel, and Sun Microsystems,

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that were in California for some time.

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And currently serves as a consultant and[br]senior software engineer at Red Hat,

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the leading global provider [br]of Open Source solutions.

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In 2011, Feminomics listed Aurora as number three amongst the top 50 women to watch in technology,

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and in 2012, SC Magazine named her one of the most influential people in computer security.

0:07:04.837,0:07:08.588
She holds a double degree in computer science and mathematics from the New Mexico Institute

0:07:08.588,0:07:11.137
of Mining and Technology,

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and continues to inspire women across the globe

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to study these disciplines and apply them[br]in a creative and impactful way.

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So I'm really thankful for the organizers of the conference for having captured Valerie

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and brought her here today,

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and I'm thankful to her for being willing to spend some time with us this evening.

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To give us a flavor of what it is[br]to be a woman in leadership,

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and what it is to inspire others [br]to go into STEM fields.

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So with that, Valerie, thank you.

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(applause)

0:08:05.531,0:08:08.418
>> Thank you so much for the very [br]flattering introduction.

0:08:08.418,0:08:10.778
I forgot I used to do those things.

0:08:10.778,0:08:13.943
I want to make one quick correction.

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This was amazingly correct for an introduction.

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I don't currently work at Red Hat anymore.

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Ada Initiative is my full-time job.

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But Red Hat -- great company.

0:08:22.765,0:08:25.310
So yes, I am super excited to be here.

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It was not at all difficult to capture me.

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Ada Lovelace has been a long time interest of mine,

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and I was just so excited to even get to attend [br]this conference, much less get to speak at it.

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So thank you, Robin Hammerman,[br]and everyone who made this possible.

0:08:40.276,0:08:41.393
So I'm going to talk today

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about rebooting the Ada Lovelace mythos.

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I'll talk quickly about my non-profit first.

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We -- The Ada Initiative, named after Ada Lovelace,

0:08:52.466,0:08:57.298
is a non-profit dedicated to supporting

0:08:57.298,0:09:01.468
and increasing the participation [br]of women in open technology and culture.

0:09:01.468,0:09:03.298
So that includes Open Source software,

0:09:03.298,0:09:05.841
which is what's behind most of the internet.

0:09:05.841,0:09:07.408
Most of Google, most of Facebook.

0:09:07.408,0:09:10.302
If you've ever used Firefox,[br]that's all Open Source software.

0:09:10.302,0:09:17.713
So I co-founded The Ada Initiative in 2011,

0:09:17.713,0:09:24.379
after a friend of mine was groped for the third time in one year at an Open Source software conference.

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I just had it, and that's what I needed to do

0:09:27.574,0:09:31.521
to change things and make the industry [br]better for women.

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The Ada Initiative has several lead projects.

0:09:35.694,0:09:39.153
Probably the most famous is the conference antiharassment policy.

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This is my solution to this kind of[br]physical assault, but also, like, pornography

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and sexist jokes that were common in our field,

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which many people just react to and say --[br]that's unthinkable,

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but that was how things were in 2011,

0:09:52.984,0:09:55.494
and still are in many other fields.

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We've also done the AdaCamp unconference,

0:09:57.674,0:09:59.724
for women in open technology and culture.

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It's incredibly fun.

0:10:00.957,0:10:04.524
We get women together from [br]the Open Library Technology Movement,

0:10:04.524,0:10:10.873
from Wikipedia, from open hardware,[br]building little blinking lights into your jackets,

0:10:10.873,0:10:12.238
and things like that.

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It's really fun.

0:10:13.211,0:10:14.903
And we do training as well.

0:10:14.903,0:10:17.353
We're supported almost entirely [br]by individual donations.

0:10:17.353,0:10:20.046
The conference sponsorships[br]only go so far.

0:10:20.046,0:10:22.952
And you can support us yourself,[br]if you'd like.

0:10:22.952,0:10:25.079
All right. I've done that.

0:10:25.079,0:10:27.689
Now I get to talk about Ada Lovelace.

0:10:27.689,0:10:29.966
So the very short version --

0:10:29.966,0:10:31.793
this is a little ironic,

0:10:31.793,0:10:34.392
because half of you have spent the day[br]learning all about Ada Lovelace,

0:10:34.392,0:10:36.993
and half of you may have never heard of her before.

0:10:36.993,0:10:38.774
So there will be a lot of review,

0:10:38.774,0:10:40.870
but I'll try to make it interesting.

0:10:40.870,0:10:45.245
So she wrote the world's first [br]computer program in 1843.

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Yes, that's 1843.

0:10:47.498,0:10:49.975
That's 160 years ago?

0:10:49.975,0:10:53.558
It was written for a computer that didn't exist[br]and was not built,

0:10:53.558,0:10:55.997
but it was still a computer program.

0:10:55.997,0:10:59.185
She was known during her lifetime,[br]and even today,

0:10:59.185,0:11:04.234
mostly as the only legitimate daughter[br]of the poet Lord Byron,

0:11:04.234,0:11:08.366
and she died at age 36,[br]after a very painful illness,

0:11:08.366,0:11:10.654
cutting off a promising career.

0:11:10.654,0:11:13.537
So there's a lot of people who like to imagine --

0:11:13.537,0:11:17.580
if she had lived, perhaps the computer age[br]would have started in 1850,

0:11:17.580,0:11:19.739
instead of 1950.

0:11:19.739,0:11:24.657
So it's sort of -- you can see why a myth built up around this amazing person.

0:11:24.657,0:11:32.893
So the questions I wanted to explore for this talk[br]were to first talk about what are the stories we tell,

0:11:32.893,0:11:35.163
what is the mythos today, about Ada Lovelace,

0:11:35.163,0:11:39.896
what are the effects of those stories[br]on our society today,

0:11:39.896,0:11:41.995
and the people around us and our technology,

0:11:41.995,0:11:46.034
and what new stories could we tell,[br]that had better effects?

0:11:46.034,0:11:51.161
So here's what to expect in the talk.

0:11:51.161,0:11:53.639
So you aren't wondering where things are going.

0:11:53.639,0:11:56.163
I'm going to start out with a cast of characters.

0:11:56.163,0:11:58.324
The people who are important [br]in the Ada Lovelace myth.

0:11:58.324,0:12:02.498
I'm going to give a --[br]hopefully a rather brief biography of Ada,

0:12:02.498,0:12:06.466
but covering the important points that come out[br]in the various versions of the stories.

0:12:06.466,0:12:11.080
And I'm going to talk about how Ada was viewed[br]through history.

0:12:11.080,0:12:12.747
Not just the different ways she's viewed today,

0:12:12.747,0:12:15.829
but how her reputation changed and evolved,

0:12:15.829,0:12:18.082
as time went by.

0:12:18.082,0:12:21.813
And then I'm going to talk about my ideas [br]for new stories to tell.

0:12:21.813,0:12:24.998
And hopefully you can bring your own.

0:12:24.998,0:12:29.077
So, to start out with the obvious person,

0:12:29.077,0:12:32.377
the most famous person in this story[br]is Ada's father,

0:12:32.377,0:12:35.484
the poet, Lord Byron, George Gordon.

0:12:35.484,0:12:37.753
He was wildly famous in his lifetime.

0:12:37.753,0:12:42.581
Often considered to be the most famous person[br]in Europe, up to that point in time.

0:12:42.581,0:12:44.324
Sort of like a rock star, basically.

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The flip side -- and I'm going to make[br]some Byron fans angry, possibly --

0:12:51.247,0:12:56.009
is that, even by the standards of his time,[br]Lord Byron was a violent, abusive,

0:12:56.009,0:12:58.326
serial sexual predator.

0:12:58.326,0:13:01.279
And he came from a long line of people[br]similar to him.

0:13:01.279,0:13:03.496
His father was called Mad Jack.

0:13:03.496,0:13:07.077
His great uncle was called The Wicked Lord.

0:13:07.077,0:13:08.514
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a picture of him.

0:13:08.514,0:13:10.621
For doing things like shooting his coachman,

0:13:10.621,0:13:15.422
and throwing the body on his wife in the carriage,[br]and driving home.

0:13:15.422,0:13:18.566
And because, at the time, he was a nobleman,

0:13:18.566,0:13:20.298
he wasn't actually punished for this.

0:13:20.298,0:13:24.659
So Byron himself was famously described as [br]"mad, bad, and dangerous to know".

0:13:24.659,0:13:26.075
And I just want to note --

0:13:26.075,0:13:27.024
you can appreciate his poetry,

0:13:27.024,0:13:30.028
while also acknowledging[br]that he was kind of a terrible human.

0:13:30.028,0:13:35.577
So he died at age 36,[br]of illness, far from home,

0:13:35.577,0:13:37.428
and cut off an amazing career.

0:13:37.428,0:13:41.099
He was only partway through[br]many fantastic works of poetry,

0:13:41.099,0:13:44.164
and we are all the worse for this.

0:13:44.164,0:13:48.990
Ada's mother is an interesting person as well.

0:13:48.990,0:13:55.060
A little less famous,[br]but just as strong a personality, I believe.

0:13:55.060,0:13:58.254
Her name is Anne Isabella Milbanke,

0:13:58.254,0:14:00.170
often known as Annabella.

0:14:00.170,0:14:02.761
She was minor nobility,[br]and the strong, independent daughter

0:14:02.761,0:14:05.227
of a strong, independent mother.

0:14:05.227,0:14:10.095
Byron used to call her[br]the Princess of Parallelograms, here.

0:14:10.095,0:14:14.340
She was very interested in mathematics,[br]and had that sort of rational, logical mind,

0:14:14.340,0:14:16.763
or at least expressed herself that way.

0:14:16.763,0:14:19.236
I don't think this was a compliment, personally.

0:14:19.236,0:14:23.548
You can read some of his poetry and find out.

0:14:23.548,0:14:27.942
So Byron left after only a month[br]into their marriage,

0:14:27.942,0:14:32.427
and Annabella got really tired[br]of all the abuse, and separated.

0:14:32.427,0:14:37.671
So Byron didn't see Ada again[br]after she was about a month old,

0:14:37.671,0:14:41.261
and Annabella put a lot of effort into raising Ada,

0:14:41.261,0:14:44.567
in order to try to reduce these[br]poetical tendencies,

0:14:44.567,0:14:46.626
which is what they called it.

0:14:46.626,0:14:48.963
You look at the family history.

0:14:48.963,0:14:51.077
It's -- yeah, you can see[br]why she was so nervous.

0:14:51.077,0:14:53.764
So our final character is Charles Babbage,

0:14:53.764,0:14:59.342
who was a really famous inventor,[br]mathematician, engineer.

0:14:59.342,0:15:00.784
That just covers a few of his careers.

0:15:00.784,0:15:05.444
Who was famous in his own time,[br]but also was famous for a number --

0:15:05.444,0:15:06.386
he was a character.

0:15:06.386,0:15:08.115
He was known for his hatred of street music.

0:15:08.115,0:15:14.057
Which -- I don't know if you've ever heard the joke[br]about paying the violinist to go away from your table.

0:15:14.057,0:15:16.466
That's what street music was in London.

0:15:16.466,0:15:17.764
In Victorian London.

0:15:17.764,0:15:23.764
He designed but never built[br]the world's first general purpose computer,

0:15:23.764,0:15:29.409
that conforms to our modern definition[br]of a general purpose computer,

0:15:29.409,0:15:31.264
that can do anything any other computer can do.

0:15:31.264,0:15:37.134
These are models of parts of this computer,[br]called the Analytical Engine.

0:15:37.134,0:15:40.668
He designed it in the 1830s.

0:15:40.668,0:15:46.054
So Ada and Babbage met[br]when she was 17 and he was 41.

0:15:46.054,0:15:49.652
And they continued as good, close personal friends

0:15:49.652,0:15:54.426
and scientific collaborators[br]for nearly 20 years, until her death.

0:15:54.426,0:15:57.121
I do not...

0:15:57.121,0:15:58.431
Yes, that does make sense.

0:15:58.431,0:15:59.431
So Ada.

0:15:59.431,0:16:01.133
We get to talk about Ada.

0:16:01.133,0:16:03.567
So her full name was Augusta Ada Byron,

0:16:03.567,0:16:06.341
when she married William King,[br]she became Augusta Ada Byron King,

0:16:06.341,0:16:09.484
and later became the Countess of Lovelace.

0:16:09.484,0:16:13.167
But strangely, we have this modern construction[br]of her name as Ada Lovelace.

0:16:13.167,0:16:16.682
I'm not quite sure how that came about,[br]but that's who people are talking about.

0:16:16.682,0:16:20.234
During her lifetime,[br]she was known primarily

0:16:20.234,0:16:22.902
as Lord Byron's daughter.

0:16:22.902,0:16:27.425
This is how I like to give an idea[br]of what her life was like.

0:16:27.425,0:16:31.729
So Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love,

0:16:31.729,0:16:33.295
both famous, famous rock stars,

0:16:33.295,0:16:35.399
have one daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.

0:16:35.399,0:16:37.868
He kills himself very early on.

0:16:37.868,0:16:40.670
So the interesting thing[br]about Frances Bean

0:16:40.670,0:16:44.212
is that Frances Bean --[br]I was trying to find a picture of her,

0:16:44.212,0:16:46.067
and she has succeeded --[br]good for her --

0:16:46.067,0:16:50.297
in not having a single photograph of her[br]in the public domain.

0:16:50.297,0:16:56.876
She's trying really hard to protect[br]her privacy.

0:16:56.876,0:16:59.847
And you can see why.

0:16:59.847,0:17:06.664
She's trying to define her own life,[br]and her own personality as an artist.

0:17:06.664,0:17:13.099
So she recently did a display[br]of her visual art.

0:17:13.099,0:17:14.217
She's a visual artist.

0:17:14.217,0:17:16.635
Under a pseudonym,[br]and it was later on discovered.

0:17:16.635,0:17:18.875
So this has an interesting parallel with Ada,

0:17:18.875,0:17:22.717
in that she published --[br]she was very concerned about putting her name

0:17:22.717,0:17:24.739
on any of her scientific work or publications,

0:17:24.739,0:17:26.808
and you can see why.

0:17:26.808,0:17:30.855
So here's a panel from Sydney Padua's[br]Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage.

0:17:30.855,0:17:32.685
Sydney, raise your hand.

0:17:32.685,0:17:34.753
It's a fantastic comic[br]about Ada Lovelace's --

0:17:34.753,0:17:38.973
a fictionalized version[br]of Lovelace and Babbage's collaboration.

0:17:38.973,0:17:44.306
But this is a really perfect summary[br]of Lady Byron's plan

0:17:44.306,0:17:49.115
to keep Ada from going nuts[br]and shooting her way across Europe.

0:17:49.115,0:17:53.779
So she decided she would teach her mathematics,

0:17:53.779,0:17:55.141
to counteract the poetical influences,

0:17:55.141,0:17:59.224
which is how Byron referred to his tendency[br]to be a terrible person.

0:17:59.224,0:18:04.478
So the interesting thing about this is that,[br]at the same time she fulfilled

0:18:04.478,0:18:08.606
all of the normal standards for women of her time[br]and her position,

0:18:08.606,0:18:11.219
she had many, many, many other interests,

0:18:11.219,0:18:13.568
including music, and specifically playing the harp.

0:18:13.568,0:18:17.691
She wanted to build a flying machine,[br]using steam engines,

0:18:17.691,0:18:19.840
and studying birds to do so.

0:18:19.840,0:18:21.897
And an interesting thing I love --

0:18:21.897,0:18:23.674
she loved horseback riding,

0:18:23.674,0:18:25.501
and it was considered good for her health.

0:18:25.501,0:18:28.433
This is a picture of her daughter,[br]Lady Anne Blunt,

0:18:28.433,0:18:33.374
who dressed up as a Bedouin[br]and traveled across Northern Africa

0:18:33.374,0:18:37.416
with her husband, and it was, you know,[br]the late 19th century,

0:18:37.416,0:18:42.323
and ended up founding the most influential[br]Arabian horse stud,

0:18:42.323,0:18:45.560
outside of Saudi Arabia.

0:18:45.560,0:18:47.916
So she's a very, very interesting person.

0:18:47.916,0:18:51.415
Along with Ada.

0:18:51.415,0:18:56.464
So luckily for Ada,[br]having such a scientific and curious mind,

0:18:56.464,0:19:01.004
amateur science was very in, at the time,[br]in her society.

0:19:01.004,0:19:04.086
And so she went to a lot of salons and parties,

0:19:04.086,0:19:06.482
where she met people like Charles Babbage,

0:19:06.482,0:19:08.149
Mary Somerville,

0:19:08.149,0:19:12.237
and many other of these amateur scientists,

0:19:12.237,0:19:15.212
whose names are in the history books these days.

0:19:15.212,0:19:17.903
So she followed the proper path,

0:19:17.903,0:19:19.375
got married at age 19,

0:19:19.375,0:19:20.641
had three children.

0:19:20.641,0:19:23.751
Her husband became the Earl of Lovelace,

0:19:23.751,0:19:25.752
which made her the Countess of Lovelace.

0:19:25.752,0:19:31.462
So she -- during the time she was having[br]three children in about three years,

0:19:31.462,0:19:34.020
she wasn't able to follow her studies much,

0:19:34.020,0:19:35.571
but kept them up.

0:19:35.571,0:19:37.027
Once she was an adult,

0:19:37.027,0:19:39.494
and able to decide what she wanted to study,

0:19:39.494,0:19:40.798
she continued with mathematics,

0:19:40.798,0:19:42.810
and found some really good tutors.

0:19:42.810,0:19:45.023
In particular, Augustus De Morgan,

0:19:45.023,0:19:51.821
who you may be familiar, from your logic and algebra classes, as the namesake of De Morgan's law.

0:19:51.821,0:19:54.348
He was an incredible mathematician,

0:19:54.348,0:19:56.451
and he had an extraordinarily high,

0:19:56.451,0:19:59.994
and probably justified opinion[br]of Ada Lovelace's potential.

0:19:59.994,0:20:04.592
So Ada is looking for something to do,

0:20:04.592,0:20:07.926
and at the suggestion of another scientist --

0:20:07.926,0:20:09.998
what's Wheatstone's first name?

0:20:09.998,0:20:11.494
>> Charles.

0:20:11.494,0:20:12.583
>> Charles Wheatstone.

0:20:12.583,0:20:15.619
Decides to translate [br]a paper someone else has written,

0:20:15.619,0:20:17.711
about Babbage's Analytical Engine.

0:20:17.711,0:20:19.209
I think this is interesting.

0:20:19.209,0:20:23.391
She was too humble to actually write[br]her own paper, so --

0:20:23.391,0:20:24.745
oh, I know, I'll translate.

0:20:24.745,0:20:27.709
This is a very common thing[br]for women in science at the time.

0:20:27.709,0:20:31.142
There's an interesting note on the man[br]who wrote the paper,

0:20:31.142,0:20:33.182
Luigi Menabrea.

0:20:33.182,0:20:36.229
He ended up becoming [br]the Prime Minister of Italy.

0:20:36.229,0:20:39.212
so the connection between computers[br]and wealth and power, I think,

0:20:39.212,0:20:41.093
was already in effect.

0:20:41.093,0:20:46.027
So yeah,[br]when she sent the paper to Babbage

0:20:46.027,0:20:48.231
for his approval, he said --

0:20:48.231,0:20:49.806
why didn't you write your own paper?

0:20:49.806,0:20:51.829
Would you like to add some notes?

0:20:51.829,0:20:56.231
Ada said sure, and thus was born [br]the world's first computer program.

0:20:56.231,0:20:59.212
It's hard to read, because it's very small writing,

0:20:59.212,0:21:01.318
because it's very large and complicated.

0:21:01.318,0:21:06.983
So she ended up writing a program[br]to calculate something called the Bernoulli numbers,

0:21:06.983,0:21:09.267
which are an extremely complex, difficult series,

0:21:09.267,0:21:12.342
with great implications for science and mathematics.

0:21:12.342,0:21:17.115
It was the first published computer program.

0:21:17.115,0:21:24.293
So I just want to give a brief summary of the controversy over the first programmer title.

0:21:24.293,0:21:28.190
We'll go over the change in public opinion[br]about whether she was the first

0:21:28.190,0:21:30.354
computer programmer in more detail,

0:21:30.354,0:21:33.865
but here's sort of the base facts behind it,

0:21:33.865,0:21:37.089
as filtered through my feminist consciousness.

0:21:37.089,0:21:41.323
So Babbage did obviously write[br]simple programs first,

0:21:41.323,0:21:44.965
because he was designing this machine,[br]and needed to figure out what it would do.

0:21:44.965,0:21:48.959
He wasn't actually super interested [br]in doing stuff with the machine.

0:21:48.959,0:21:50.551
he was more interested in the machine itself,

0:21:50.551,0:21:53.069
so there are a number of very simple [br]programs in his notes.

0:21:53.069,0:21:56.461
The Bernoulli numbers program[br]was definitely the most complicated program

0:21:56.461,0:21:58.712
written at that time.

0:21:58.712,0:22:02.022
And we're calling a computer program[br]a series of instructions

0:22:02.022,0:22:04.158
for a machine to carry out.

0:22:04.158,0:22:08.964
The evidence is -- the contemporary evidence [br]is very strong that Ada actually wrote this.

0:22:08.964,0:22:10.590
There's a bunch of letters.

0:22:10.590,0:22:13.992
Babbage makes a comment in his autobiography

0:22:13.992,0:22:16.767
that's often misinterpreted[br]to mean he wrote it,

0:22:16.767,0:22:18.831
but it really says that she wrote it.

0:22:18.831,0:22:24.590
And then there's the fact that's normally[br]very important in science,

0:22:24.590,0:22:26.378
which is that Ada published it first.

0:22:26.378,0:22:29.076
That's usually how you establish priority.

0:22:29.076,0:22:34.303
And in addition to that,[br]both Babbage and everyone who knew them

0:22:34.303,0:22:37.796
and everyone who reads their papers[br]agrees that Ada had a much deeper

0:22:37.796,0:22:41.995
and more complex understanding of the potential[br]of computer programming.

0:22:41.995,0:22:42.969
So as far as I'm concerned,

0:22:42.969,0:22:45.964
Ada is definitely for sure[br]the first computer programmer.

0:22:45.964,0:22:48.717
Unfortunately, about this time,

0:22:48.717,0:22:52.214
Ada also started to become[br]mentally and physically ill.

0:22:52.214,0:22:56.887
She -- retroactive historical diagnoses,[br]for what they're worth,

0:22:56.887,0:22:59.183
she probably had uterine cancer.

0:22:59.183,0:23:02.973
She probably was bipolar,[br]also known as manic depressive.

0:23:02.973,0:23:06.798
She began taking laudanum[br]and pot, and using Mesmerists,

0:23:06.798,0:23:09.991
hypnotism, to control the pain and the mania.

0:23:09.991,0:23:17.520
It's around this time as well[br]she began gambling,

0:23:17.520,0:23:19.330
which actually meant betting on the horses.

0:23:19.330,0:23:20.427
Not super unusual.

0:23:20.427,0:23:24.432
And was probably unfaithful to her husband,[br]although a lot of the letters

0:23:24.432,0:23:26.717
from that time are destroyed.

0:23:26.717,0:23:29.905
What I can say for sure is that,[br]when she told her husband what she had done

0:23:29.905,0:23:31.849
on her deathbed,[br]he refused to speak to her again,

0:23:31.849,0:23:33.419
until her death.

0:23:33.419,0:23:38.128
So I think it was probably pretty bad, for the time.

0:23:38.128,0:23:40.635
This is a portrait taken of her[br]shortly before her death.

0:23:40.635,0:23:43.631
The full size one[br]you can see pretty clearly --

0:23:43.631,0:23:45.212
she's dying.

0:23:45.212,0:23:47.586
It was pretty heartbreaking.

0:23:47.586,0:23:50.531
She died at age 36,[br]the same age at her father,

0:23:50.531,0:23:53.665
and oh, when you read her letters,

0:23:53.665,0:23:57.387
she's constantly writing about how[br]she needs to take it carefully,

0:23:57.387,0:24:01.907
develop her genius slowly,[br]build up a body of work piece by piece,

0:24:01.907,0:24:05.177
when really she was this incredible intuitive thinker

0:24:05.177,0:24:10.135
who came up with groundbreaking ideas[br]while writing footnotes,

0:24:10.135,0:24:12.635
literal footnotes, to somebody else's paper.

0:24:12.635,0:24:13.332
Right?

0:24:13.332,0:24:16.325
And you want to go back in time[br]and just say -- just write it.

0:24:16.325,0:24:17.137
Just write it.

0:24:17.137,0:24:19.155
Forget about what everyone else thinks.

0:24:19.155,0:24:20.493
Just do your work.

0:24:20.493,0:24:24.136
Carpe diem, everyone here.

0:24:24.136,0:24:26.133
Do it now.

0:24:26.133,0:24:29.214
I wrote my first published paper[br]when I was 24,

0:24:29.214,0:24:30.431
and not in grad school or anything,

0:24:30.431,0:24:33.331
because I didn't know you weren't supposed to.

0:24:33.331,0:24:36.743
Just go ahead and do it,[br]is my view.

0:24:36.743,0:24:40.136
Okay. So that's the basic sort of[br]attempting to be pretty objective

0:24:40.136,0:24:41.896
Ada Lovelace story.

0:24:41.896,0:24:44.687
So how was Ada Lovelace viewed [br]throughout history?

0:24:44.687,0:24:47.301
We can start with the obvious.

0:24:47.301,0:24:48.849
Byron's daughter.

0:24:48.849,0:24:50.644
Like, here's Ada down here.

0:24:50.644,0:24:52.990
That was, like, basically her whole life.

0:24:52.990,0:24:56.820
This famous rock star person.

0:24:56.820,0:24:58.217
So...

0:24:58.217,0:25:01.564
Even in the initial call for papers for this conference,

0:25:01.564,0:25:03.098
Robin, I hope you don't mind me calling this out --

0:25:03.098,0:25:08.503
she was described as --[br]the conference about the achievements and legacies

0:25:08.503,0:25:12.886
of the poet Lord Byron's only known[br]legitimate child, Ada Lovelace.

0:25:12.886,0:25:17.011
So it's definitely the thing that hung over her,[br]her entire life.

0:25:17.011,0:25:22.852
In 1833, she started to get[br]a little bit of a different reputation,

0:25:22.852,0:25:26.221
which was part of this amateur science scene[br]that was going on.

0:25:26.221,0:25:29.089
People noticed that she understood[br]what Babbage was saying,

0:25:29.089,0:25:30.788
because nobody else did.

0:25:30.788,0:25:34.064
But they were still --[br]when they would write letters,

0:25:34.064,0:25:36.539
when they got home,[br]they would talk about how much Ada

0:25:36.539,0:25:38.346
did or didn't resemble Byron.

0:25:38.346,0:25:39.539
So that was...

0:25:39.539,0:25:43.441
She was smart Byron's daughter,[br]at that point.

0:25:43.441,0:25:47.037
1838, she got a different --[br]a little extra addition.

0:25:47.037,0:25:48.093
The Countess of Lovelace,

0:25:48.093,0:25:50.932
rather than Lady King.

0:25:50.932,0:25:55.079
1843, the notes to the translation,[br]this first computer program,

0:25:55.079,0:25:59.843
were published under just her initials, actually.

0:25:59.843,0:26:01.515
Even her misspelled initials.

0:26:01.515,0:26:05.545
But Babbage couldn't keep the secret entirely,

0:26:05.545,0:26:08.428
and let Menabrea know[br]that actually it was Ada Lovelace.

0:26:08.428,0:26:10.565
So a few people knew.

0:26:10.565,0:26:16.474
In 1845, she discovered[br]that she was too immoral for the library.

0:26:16.474,0:26:19.826
So this was a picture of the Royal Society Library.

0:26:19.826,0:26:22.042
She wanted to get in,[br]so she could read books on mathematics,

0:26:22.042,0:26:24.231
and things like that,[br]and she was advised

0:26:24.231,0:26:26.950
that the word of her infidelity had gotten out,

0:26:26.950,0:26:31.174
and she was not suited[br]to go read books in this building.

0:26:31.174,0:26:32.465
Very much a thing.

0:26:32.465,0:26:35.354
So that's one way to find out.

0:26:35.354,0:26:36.624
Hey, I'd like to check out this book.

0:26:36.624,0:26:39.255
No, sorry, we know you're having --[br]you're sleeping with so and so.

0:26:39.255,0:26:40.587
What?

0:26:40.587,0:26:41.706
So...

0:26:41.706,0:26:45.083
1848, she was publicly acknowledged[br]as the author of the notes.

0:26:45.083,0:26:47.570
No one really cared.

0:26:47.570,0:26:51.309
1852, she dies,[br]and now she is Byron's dead daughter.

0:26:51.309,0:26:57.117
Yes.

0:26:57.117,0:27:03.973
She was in with -- yeah,[br]the second sentence, after saying where she died.

0:27:03.973,0:27:05.955
She was the only daughter of Lord Byron.

0:27:05.955,0:27:06.798
There you go.

0:27:06.798,0:27:09.014
Blah-blah-blah, and then she was married[br]to some people and stuff,

0:27:09.014,0:27:11.924
and they had babies,[br]and then it says she was distinguished

0:27:11.924,0:27:13.582
for the strength of her intellect.

0:27:13.582,0:27:15.709
So people noticed she was smart, at least.

0:27:15.709,0:27:17.089
And that's kind of what she gets.

0:27:17.089,0:27:18.942
That's all she gets in her biography.

0:27:18.942,0:27:23.948
Lady Byron was kind of a mean person,

0:27:23.948,0:27:28.749
and spent a lot of time making sure[br]everyone knew about Ada's faults and mistakes,

0:27:28.749,0:27:30.914
starting around the time of her death.

0:27:30.914,0:27:35.658
I'm not sure what her deal was,[br]but there you go.

0:27:35.658,0:27:39.120
1864, Babbage wrote his autobiography,

0:27:39.120,0:27:42.180
and in it, he has a very few mentions of her.

0:27:42.180,0:27:46.895
I mean, there's this sense[br]that proper women shouldn't appear in public at all.

0:27:46.895,0:27:50.733
Appear in the papers when you're born, [br]when you're married, and when you died.

0:27:50.733,0:27:52.439
And for the most part,[br]she succeeded in that.

0:27:52.439,0:27:55.652
So Babbage mentions her,[br]praises her,

0:27:55.652,0:27:57.345
talks about some of the work she's done.

0:27:57.345,0:28:00.540
I'm not sure how many people[br]read all the way through his autobiography.

0:28:00.540,0:28:03.080
But there you go.

0:28:03.080,0:28:08.091
So there's -- then we have about a century[br]of crickets, you know.

0:28:08.091,0:28:09.131
Not much going on.

0:28:09.131,0:28:12.956
These are a few of the minor mentions[br]I could find here and there.

0:28:12.956,0:28:15.461
In 1889, the notes were reprinted.

0:28:15.461,0:28:20.424
1905, she has a literal footnote[br]in the history of calculating machines,

0:28:20.424,0:28:23.217
by Maurice d'Ocagne.

0:28:23.217,0:28:25.700
I kept meaning to look up[br]how to say that, but I never did.

0:28:25.700,0:28:30.165
1932, she's mentioned in [br]the MIT Technology Review.

0:28:30.165,0:28:32.247
I was unable to find out what they said,

0:28:32.247,0:28:36.149
because the MIT Technology Review's paywall[br]was not functioning,

0:28:36.149,0:28:39.916
and I could not give them $9.99 to read this paper.

0:28:39.916,0:28:41.129
So...

0:28:41.129,0:28:42.952
Common.

0:28:42.952,0:28:48.088
So 1950 is where the general public[br]begins to learn about Lovelace again,

0:28:48.088,0:28:52.203
through Alan Turing,[br]who is a famous computer science pioneer,

0:28:52.203,0:28:56.842
and worked -- was a key part [br]of winning World War II.

0:28:56.842,0:29:03.049
So Alan is very interested in machine intelligence,[br]artificial intelligence,

0:29:03.049,0:29:05.279
and he writes about the objections to this.

0:29:05.279,0:29:08.250
And he calls one of them Lady Lovelace's objection.

0:29:08.250,0:29:11.278
Which I think is totally unfair,[br]because he completely misinterprets

0:29:11.278,0:29:13.781
what she's trying to say,[br]on purpose, to make a point.

0:29:13.781,0:29:20.401
In her notes, Lovelace is trying to counteract[br]this idea at the time --

0:29:20.401,0:29:24.691
people were like -- whoa, this thing[br]just calculated the answer to 3 + 2.

0:29:24.691,0:29:26.171
It must be living!

0:29:26.171,0:29:28.423
You know, there was a famous question.

0:29:28.423,0:29:30.750
What if I tell it the wrong question?

0:29:30.750,0:29:32.376
Will it still give me the right answer?

0:29:32.376,0:29:33.869
You know, people had no idea.

0:29:33.869,0:29:35.146
So she was trying to explain --

0:29:35.146,0:29:38.009
these machines can only do[br]what you tell them to do.

0:29:38.009,0:29:40.617
Somebody still has to come up[br]with the problem, encode it,

0:29:40.617,0:29:41.888
and stick it in the machine.

0:29:41.888,0:29:44.945
Turing interpreted this as --[br]machines can never surprise you.

0:29:44.945,0:29:47.050
It's like, well, no,[br]that's not what she was saying.

0:29:47.050,0:29:52.133
But the question of artificial intelligence[br]is still alive today, of course.

0:29:52.133,0:29:55.093
But yeah, at least Turing got her name[br]back in circulation.

0:29:55.093,0:29:57.033
I have no idea[br]how he became aware of her.

0:29:57.033,0:29:59.339
If it was a thing,[br]and everyone passed around the notes

0:29:59.339,0:30:00.807
at Cambridge or something.

0:30:00.807,0:30:02.505
I'd love to find that out.

0:30:02.505,0:30:07.231
So in 1953,[br]somebody finally uses the words

0:30:07.231,0:30:08.935
"first computer program".

0:30:08.935,0:30:11.563
This is Bertram Bowden,[br]in Faster Than Thought,

0:30:11.563,0:30:14.794
which is this hilarious attempt[br]to write a history of computing machines

0:30:14.794,0:30:17.589
in 1953,[br]and he makes this comment of --

0:30:17.589,0:30:23.282
thank you so much to my printers[br]for the fact that things are changing so quickly,

0:30:23.282,0:30:25.963
I have to make corrections[br]between each proof,

0:30:25.963,0:30:30.527
because stuff was being updated so quickly.

0:30:30.527,0:30:34.099
So in this, he says:[br]"Lady Lovelace had undoubtedly

0:30:34.099,0:30:39.000
a profound understanding of the principles of the machine," et cetera, and then wrote:

0:30:39.000,0:30:43.703
"Including what we should now call a program[br]for computing the Bernoulli numbers,

0:30:43.703,0:30:45.706
by a very sophisticated method."

0:30:45.706,0:30:48.377
So that's the first time I can really say --[br]find someone who's not calling her

0:30:48.377,0:30:53.547
Babbage's interpreter,[br]or explaining that stuff real good now.

0:30:53.547,0:30:55.954
It's -- she wrote a computer program.

0:30:55.954,0:31:01.576
So 1972, Isaac Azimov,[br]you know, famous science fiction writer,

0:31:01.576,0:31:04.293
and science writer,[br]calls her the Mother of Computers.

0:31:04.293,0:31:05.412
Which is interesting.

0:31:05.412,0:31:06.894
I would call it the Mother of Programming.

0:31:06.894,0:31:09.762
But, you know, these things[br]are not terribly well distinguished at the time.

0:31:09.762,0:31:13.240
In 1976, the first book-length biography comes out,

0:31:13.240,0:31:16.611
by a historian and fashion model,[br]Dorothy Langley Moore,

0:31:16.611,0:31:18.314
which I think is a cool combination.

0:31:18.314,0:31:23.357
I couldn't actually get a copy,[br]but there's a couple of articles

0:31:23.357,0:31:25.782
written for a women's mathematics newsletter,

0:31:25.782,0:31:29.151
which used the words "first computer programmer".

0:31:29.151,0:31:31.556
It also talked about her gambling,[br]and things like that.

0:31:31.556,0:31:32.861
So as far as I can tell,

0:31:32.861,0:31:36.649
1976 is the time when people said[br]"first computer programmer",

0:31:36.649,0:31:39.316
and not just the first computer program.

0:31:39.316,0:31:40.942
So yeah, it only took...

0:31:40.942,0:31:47.204
133 years[br]for people to come to this point.

0:31:47.204,0:31:52.238
So there's 133 years of Lovelace not being [br]the first computer programmer.

0:31:52.238,0:31:55.290
Being Byron's daughter,[br]being someone who explained Babbage pretty well.

0:31:55.290,0:31:57.740
And then that's when that finally happened.

0:31:57.740,0:32:02.656
So 1980 is when the Department of Defense[br]issued a new language standard,

0:32:02.656,0:32:06.067
and named it Ada,[br]in honor of Ada Lovelace.

0:32:06.067,0:32:08.522
This is an Ada language computer program.

0:32:08.522,0:32:13.069
One of the parts they skipped[br]in my resume for the introduction

0:32:13.069,0:32:18.399
is that I wrote Ada programs for a living,[br]for six months, straight out of college.

0:32:18.399,0:32:19.497
I don't recommend it.

0:32:19.497,0:32:21.136
It's a really unpleasant language.

0:32:21.136,0:32:27.454
But naming her -- naming the language after her[br]shows the regard she was held in at that time.

0:32:27.454,0:32:30.511
At least by the United States [br]Department of Defense.

0:32:30.511,0:32:36.068
so in 1985, Dorothy Stein --[br]you can barely see this.

0:32:36.068,0:32:40.022
The cover is deathly black,[br]and I think that reflects the opinions of the author.

0:32:40.022,0:32:45.396
In 1995, Dorothy Stein published[br]the second book-length biography

0:32:45.396,0:32:47.476
of Ada Lovelace, that I'm aware of.

0:32:47.476,0:32:52.176
Which -- she presents her[br]as mad, bad, and moderately smart.

0:32:52.176,0:32:59.951
So Dorothy Stein really had some kind of issues[br]with Ada Lovelace.

0:32:59.951,0:33:00.924
I'm not sure what.

0:33:00.924,0:33:07.051
But even Dorothy Stein still acknowledged[br]that Ada wrote that first computer program.

0:33:07.051,0:33:08.556
She just thought that she was a terrible person.

0:33:08.556,0:33:10.220
So...

0:33:10.220,0:33:16.011
1986, there's a very short book[br]about Ada Lovelace,

0:33:16.011,0:33:18.257
and mostly her work, which is nice.

0:33:18.257,0:33:22.096
I think it must have been a response[br]to Stein, based on the forward.

0:33:22.096,0:33:24.667
Like "Recently,[br]some people have said..."

0:33:24.667,0:33:28.402
It's actually a pretty nice work,[br]especially if you're interested

0:33:28.402,0:33:30.079
in computer programming.

0:33:30.079,0:33:33.340
And she's portrayed[br]as a complex, whole, flawed person,

0:33:33.340,0:33:35.493
who did some good work as well.

0:33:35.493,0:33:37.209
So... Unfortunately, it's not very popular.

0:33:37.209,0:33:39.139
I really enjoyed reading it, but...

0:33:39.139,0:33:41.908
All right, so now we get into the wars.

0:33:41.908,0:33:42.933
The full wars.

0:33:42.933,0:33:45.185
I mean, Stein was not that great, but wow.

0:33:45.185,0:33:48.950
1990, Alan G. Bromley,[br]a respected computer historian,

0:33:48.950,0:33:50.457
wrote an article in...

0:33:50.457,0:33:54.475
In which he outright denies[br]that she's the first computer programmer,

0:33:54.475,0:33:56.724
besides saying, of course,[br]she's arrogant and deluded,

0:33:56.724,0:33:57.740
and all these things.

0:33:57.740,0:34:02.411
While, at the same time,[br]because their letters are so clear,

0:34:02.411,0:34:03.825
even he couldn't deny this.

0:34:03.825,0:34:08.044
He says that she caught a bug[br]in the program that Babbage wrote.

0:34:08.044,0:34:10.817
So there's this saying that's common[br]among computer scientists.

0:34:10.817,0:34:17.692
That, if you write a computer program,[br]that's the very most complicated one you can write.

0:34:17.692,0:34:20.274
You aren't smart enough to debug it.

0:34:20.274,0:34:24.972
It's more difficult to debug a computer program[br]than it is to write it in the first place.

0:34:24.972,0:34:28.597
So that a historian of computing[br]could make that claim

0:34:28.597,0:34:31.678
I think kind of speaks[br]for that bias there.

0:34:31.678,0:34:36.870
Also in 1990,[br]Bruce Collier's PhD thesis.

0:34:36.870,0:34:39.936
Calls her mad as a hatter.

0:34:39.936,0:34:42.364
That's real scholarly language there,

0:34:42.364,0:34:45.544
and says she contributed little[br]or nothing to the notes.

0:34:45.544,0:34:50.379
So yeah, that's kind of awesome as well.

0:34:50.379,0:34:55.670
Actually, Sydney pointed out to me[br]an interesting point,

0:34:55.670,0:34:59.005
which is that many of these people[br]who are so passionately against

0:34:59.005,0:35:02.672
Lovelace having any involvement[br]in the first computer program

0:35:02.672,0:35:05.837
are also very passionate[br]pro-Babbage people.

0:35:05.837,0:35:07.252
Charles Babbage --

0:35:07.252,0:35:10.703
they're really trying to reclaim[br]his place in computing history.

0:35:10.703,0:35:12.295
Sure, his machine never got built,

0:35:12.295,0:35:14.336
but he's still really important,[br]and they're tired of people

0:35:14.336,0:35:15.805
taking away his credit.

0:35:15.805,0:35:19.973
So that could definitely be an issue[br]with the whole taking away Lovelace's credit,

0:35:19.973,0:35:22.147
because there's only so much credit to go around.

0:35:22.147,0:35:27.564
So in 1990,[br]we also get our first major fictional depiction

0:35:27.564,0:35:31.549
of Ada Lovelace,[br]as a minor character in The Difference Engine,

0:35:31.549,0:35:37.497
which is sort of the novel[br]that popularized the steampunk movement,

0:35:37.497,0:35:41.788
which you're probably all more familiar[br]than you want to be with.

0:35:41.788,0:35:46.222
So in the book,[br]Ada is portrayed

0:35:46.222,0:35:48.668
as a mathematical genius.

0:35:48.668,0:35:52.334
She's also kind of not that bright[br]when it comes to the ways of the world,

0:35:52.334,0:35:54.758
and is busy trying to gamble,[br]and all that kind of stuff.

0:35:54.758,0:35:59.378
So it's sort of an absent-minded[br]professor stereotype.

0:35:59.378,0:36:02.096
When you read Ada's letters,[br]she's probably not that practical,

0:36:02.096,0:36:07.225
so part of what I like about this[br]is that they show her deriving

0:36:07.225,0:36:11.398
and discovering mathematical theorems[br]that didn't come until the '30s,

0:36:11.398,0:36:12.921
that are foundational.

0:36:12.921,0:36:15.360
So it's a neat portrayal.

0:36:15.360,0:36:20.796
1992 is the longest,[br]most sympathetic biography,

0:36:20.796,0:36:25.110
called Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers,[br]by Betty Alexandra Toole.

0:36:25.110,0:36:29.737
It's mostly the letters Ada sent,[br]and some sent to her.

0:36:29.737,0:36:33.059
And she presents her --[br]she's very sympathetic.

0:36:33.059,0:36:36.699
Presents her as ambitious,[br]complex, flawed, and brilliant.

0:36:36.699,0:36:41.858
It unfortunately also tries to draw[br]a number of analogies

0:36:41.858,0:36:45.227
between the Ada programming language[br]and Ada's thought process,

0:36:45.227,0:36:47.996
which don't make a ton of sense,[br]as a computer programmer.

0:36:47.996,0:36:51.214
But it's especially great[br]as a primary source

0:36:51.214,0:36:53.878
for understanding who Ada was as a person.

0:36:53.878,0:36:57.778
So I'll try to go a little more quickly[br]on the rest of these.

0:36:57.778,0:37:00.651
1993, Tom Stoppard's Arcadia.

0:37:00.651,0:37:04.234
He says that Ada Lovelace[br]was an inspiration

0:37:04.234,0:37:08.437
for one of the characters,[br]a young girl who's working with a math tutor,

0:37:08.437,0:37:11.234
and continually comes up with[br]mathematical ideas

0:37:11.234,0:37:14.218
so ahead of her time[br]that he always dismisses them

0:37:14.218,0:37:16.690
as nonsense,[br]and they're later rediscovered,

0:37:16.690,0:37:19.671
and hailed as the first[br]understanding of fractals,

0:37:19.671,0:37:21.187
so I thought that was a neat portrayal.

0:37:21.187,0:37:23.501
Very accurate to her life.

0:37:23.501,0:37:26.170
In 1997,[br]I have not been able

0:37:26.170,0:37:27.830
to bring myself to watch this movie.

0:37:27.830,0:37:29.267
There's a movie called Conceiving Ada,

0:37:29.267,0:37:32.171
which is sort of loosely inspired[br]by something or other.

0:37:32.171,0:37:37.416
In it, Ada Lovelace[br]figures out how to communicate

0:37:37.416,0:37:40.374
back and forth with the future,[br]by the means of undying information waves,

0:37:40.374,0:37:42.546
and the people in the future[br]think she's so important,

0:37:42.546,0:37:45.220
they're trying to bring her back to life[br]by genetic engineering,

0:37:45.220,0:37:46.927
or so Wikipedia tells me.

0:37:46.927,0:37:49.608
So clearly -- pretty sure[br]it was a positive portrayal,

0:37:49.608,0:37:51.185
or at least intended to be.

0:37:51.185,0:37:52.400
So...

0:37:52.400,0:37:54.722
1998, the British Computing Society

0:37:54.722,0:37:56.801
creates the Lovelace Medal in her honor.

0:37:56.801,0:37:59.563
This is the 2007 Lovelace Medal winner,

0:37:59.563,0:38:01.006
Karen Sparck Jones.

0:38:01.006,0:38:03.773
The Ada Initiative considered [br]naming ourselves after her,

0:38:03.773,0:38:06.757
but Sparck Jones[br]just wasn't quite as good as Ada.

0:38:06.757,0:38:08.370
Sparck would have been awesome.

0:38:08.370,0:38:09.942
The Sparck Initiative.

0:38:09.942,0:38:13.315
So 2000, Doron Swade[br]comes up with a history

0:38:13.315,0:38:16.046
of Charles Babbage's computing machines,

0:38:16.046,0:38:19.925
in which he describes Ada[br]as deluded, bossy,

0:38:19.925,0:38:22.197
coquettish, and demanding,

0:38:22.197,0:38:24.376
which are all, like,[br]wonderfully gendered insults.

0:38:24.376,0:38:30.010
I took a photo of the index --[br]entry in the index for Lovelace,

0:38:30.010,0:38:32.376
because I just thought it was so[br]representative.

0:38:32.376,0:38:37.778
He says "exaggeration of contribution[br]to Babbage's engines, 166-9"

0:38:37.778,0:38:43.045
"Self-regard and conviction of own genius, 158-9".

0:38:43.045,0:38:45.342
Babbage didn't think[br]he was a genius, no.

0:38:45.342,0:38:48.646
No, Babbage thought he was a genius,[br]just in case you weren't sure.

0:38:48.646,0:38:52.510
Again, another Babbage-ist, right?

0:38:52.510,0:38:59.575
2001, I mean, this is supposedly[br]a book about Ada and her achievements,

0:38:59.575,0:39:02.104
by Benjamin Woolley,[br]the Bride of Science,

0:39:02.104,0:39:05.026
but it focuses mostly[br]on her emotions,

0:39:05.026,0:39:07.301
and her life, and her personal life,[br]and all that stuff,

0:39:07.301,0:39:12.306
and it's not that...[br]It's only a part of her life,

0:39:12.306,0:39:13.888
shall we say.

0:39:13.888,0:39:16.653
So 2009,[br]Suw Charman-Anderson,

0:39:16.653,0:39:20.850
who is in some way, perhaps,[br]responsible for all of this happening,

0:39:20.850,0:39:23.485
founded Ada Lovelace Day,

0:39:23.485,0:39:27.523
which is now --[br]to raise the profile

0:39:27.523,0:39:30.106
of women in science,[br]technology, engineering, and mathematics.

0:39:30.106,0:39:31.636
That's the STEM we keep talking about.

0:39:31.636,0:39:34.493
It's grown and grown.

0:39:34.493,0:39:39.899
This conference was actually scheduled[br]to go with Ada Lovelace Day.

0:39:39.899,0:39:44.771
It's just a fantastic time,[br]where people write blog posts

0:39:44.771,0:39:46.615
and update Wikipedia pages

0:39:46.615,0:39:47.905
about women scientists.

0:39:47.905,0:39:49.435
They're just the greatest stories.

0:39:49.435,0:39:51.918
All the stories we know are so boring.

0:39:51.918,0:39:56.306
I think you can say at this point in time[br]Ada Lovelace is definitely a feminist icon

0:39:56.306,0:39:59.107
in the popular imagination,[br]if she wasn't already.

0:39:59.107,0:40:05.494
2009, by no coincidence,[br]because they were friends,

0:40:05.494,0:40:10.563
Sydney Padua put together the first[br]and assumed to be last issue

0:40:10.563,0:40:14.566
of the comic, the Origin of Ada Lovelace,

0:40:14.566,0:40:18.365
which became this wonderful series[br]called Lovelace and Babbage.

0:40:18.365,0:40:22.901
In it, she and Babbage[br]team up to fight crime.

0:40:22.901,0:40:25.522
They just have different definitions of crime.

0:40:25.522,0:40:28.021
She thinks it's poetry.

0:40:28.021,0:40:29.188
He thinks it's music.

0:40:29.188,0:40:30.317
You can see why.

0:40:30.317,0:40:35.353
She's not just, like,[br]sort of the more practical person,

0:40:35.353,0:40:36.897
which is what she was in their lifetime.

0:40:36.897,0:40:40.157
She's also shown as, like, brooding and brilliant,[br]and occasionally unhinged.

0:40:40.157,0:40:44.800
It's a really fun, full-featured person.

0:40:44.800,0:40:49.023
It's not Ada herself,[br]but it's a great person who could exist,

0:40:49.023,0:40:50.313
and you want to get to know better,

0:40:50.313,0:40:52.636
and has all sorts of hilarious gags.

0:40:52.636,0:40:53.807
So check it out.

0:40:53.807,0:40:56.016
I can't leave out The Ada Initiative.

0:40:56.016,0:41:01.389
2011,[br]we use Ada as our --

0:41:01.389,0:41:05.699
we did a new modern portrait of her.

0:41:05.699,0:41:10.712
The Ada Initiative is focused more[br]on Open Source software

0:41:10.712,0:41:11.967
than software in general.

0:41:11.967,0:41:13.687
We try to keep our scope.

0:41:13.687,0:41:15.635
So the thing we brought to the Ada Lovelace story

0:41:15.635,0:41:18.521
is that she's the world's first[br]Open Source software programmer,

0:41:18.521,0:41:21.062
because she published the source code [br]to her program,

0:41:21.062,0:41:24.083
and whether or not she meant it[br]to be under any kind of license,

0:41:24.083,0:41:27.552
it went into the public domain[br]some time in the 19th century.

0:41:27.552,0:41:30.809
So anybody can take this code,[br]alter it, and reuse it.

0:41:30.809,0:41:32.192
It's Open Source software.

0:41:32.192,0:41:33.183
So...

0:41:33.183,0:41:35.651
The world's first computer programmer[br]was also a woman,

0:41:35.651,0:41:37.989
who was also an Open Source programmer.

0:41:37.989,0:41:43.995
So there's been some more[br]recent fictional depictions,

0:41:43.995,0:41:47.501
which I only learned about[br]thanks to Vicky's talk earlier today.

0:41:47.501,0:41:51.194
And here's a book[br]that came out in 2011,

0:41:51.194,0:41:52.785
All Men of Genius.

0:41:52.785,0:41:55.619
She's a character who's in her 60s,

0:41:55.619,0:41:59.350
and is successful, respected,[br]influential, a bit naughty.

0:41:59.350,0:42:03.162
I am so excited this book exists.

0:42:03.162,0:42:05.268
The Lazarus Machine.

0:42:05.268,0:42:08.518
In it, she co-founds a computer company [br]with Babbage.

0:42:08.518,0:42:10.719
This is great, because it's a direct --

0:42:10.719,0:42:15.274
it's great for many reasons,[br]but she proposed this to Babbage

0:42:15.274,0:42:16.152
in one of her letters.

0:42:16.152,0:42:17.378
We have a letter that says --[br]hey, Babbage.

0:42:17.378,0:42:19.853
Why don't you let me take care[br]of the business and the PR,

0:42:19.853,0:42:22.136
and then we could actually get these[br]engines built?

0:42:22.136,0:42:23.435
And he's like -- well, no, of course not.

0:42:23.435,0:42:24.962
I don't want to let go of all that control.

0:42:24.962,0:42:28.106
But this is kind of a neat idea[br]of what could have happened.

0:42:28.106,0:42:31.168
And this is a new biography[br]that just came out on Tuesday,

0:42:31.168,0:42:32.103
so I haven't read it.

0:42:32.103,0:42:34.270
Called A Female Genius.

0:42:34.270,0:42:40.187
All I can tell from the blurb[br]is that he believes

0:42:40.187,0:42:43.203
that she wrote the computer program,[br]she was hampered by sexism,

0:42:43.203,0:42:45.324
and that she and Babbage became lovers.

0:42:45.324,0:42:49.954
Which I see no hints of,[br]but that's another story we can tell.

0:42:49.954,0:42:53.774
So here's what I think[br]are the top four stories that we tell

0:42:53.774,0:42:54.772
about Ada Lovelace today.

0:42:54.772,0:43:00.066
And I'll talk about each one of them,[br]and what's the effect it has on society.

0:43:00.066,0:43:03.646
So the first computer programmer --

0:43:03.646,0:43:05.571
just, like, this really one-dimensional story.

0:43:05.571,0:43:10.419
And it ignores all the rest of her life,

0:43:10.419,0:43:14.212
and perpetuates this horrible stereotype[br]that computer programmers

0:43:14.212,0:43:16.650
have to only be interested in computing.

0:43:16.650,0:43:18.916
I was definitely considered[br]a very strange person in college,

0:43:18.916,0:43:20.792
studying computer science,

0:43:20.792,0:43:24.390
because I liked my English literature class.

0:43:24.390,0:43:25.798
"What's wrong with you?"

0:43:25.798,0:43:30.020
Ada rode horses and played music.

0:43:30.020,0:43:32.189
She was much more like a complex fractal,

0:43:32.189,0:43:33.332
and I really want people --

0:43:33.332,0:43:35.525
besides the good interests,

0:43:35.525,0:43:39.434
she gambled, and cheated on her husband,

0:43:39.434,0:43:42.109
and had children,[br]and had mixed feelings about her children,

0:43:42.109,0:43:43.438
and was trying to be a good daughter.

0:43:43.438,0:43:44.437
All that stuff.

0:43:44.437,0:43:48.518
And she was able to come up with[br]these amazing advances in computing.

0:43:48.518,0:43:51.959
So you just don't have to be this single-minded,[br]nose-down kind of person.

0:43:51.959,0:43:55.485
So as an icon for women in STEM,[br]this is limiting,

0:43:55.485,0:43:57.297
and I'm guilty of this, obviously.

0:43:57.297,0:44:00.521
For several reasons,[br]but one is that it erases

0:44:00.521,0:44:03.071
the other people,[br]other women who were working in STEM,

0:44:03.071,0:44:04.063
at that time.

0:44:04.063,0:44:06.770
It makes her seem like[br]an exceptional, strange person.

0:44:06.770,0:44:08.023
You know, Lord Byron's daughter.

0:44:08.023,0:44:09.775
Her incredible mental gifts.

0:44:09.775,0:44:10.688
Which she had.

0:44:10.688,0:44:14.716
But she also had the ability[br]to have a mathematics education,

0:44:14.716,0:44:18.241
and if more women had[br]had the same mathematics education,

0:44:18.241,0:44:21.253
they could have also accomplished[br]similar things.

0:44:21.253,0:44:23.213
Here are a few of her contemporaries.

0:44:23.213,0:44:25.960
Marie Sophie Germain[br]was a physicist.

0:44:25.960,0:44:28.888
Mary Somerville[br]was one of her good friends,

0:44:28.888,0:44:30.459
and a mathematician and scientist.

0:44:30.459,0:44:34.291
And Maria Mitchell was an astronomer.

0:44:34.291,0:44:37.204
And these are all just women[br]whose names were variations on Mary.

0:44:37.204,0:44:38.515
So many, many women.

0:44:38.515,0:44:41.593
The problem with the delusional --[br]the Stein take.

0:44:41.593,0:44:44.238
She's delusional, immoral,[br]a terrible person.

0:44:44.238,0:44:45.510
Oh yeah,[br]she wrote the first computer program.

0:44:45.510,0:44:49.757
That's not the focus we give[br]to male scientists.

0:44:49.757,0:44:53.546
These are just three --[br]these are the first three male scientists I thought of,

0:44:53.546,0:44:56.659
and they all --[br]Nicola Tesla, John Nash --

0:44:56.659,0:44:59.709
a mathematician, but --[br]and Isaac Newton.

0:44:59.709,0:45:03.543
They all had terrible mental problems,[br]and terrible personal problems,

0:45:03.543,0:45:06.936
but nobody diminishes their science[br]as a result of it.

0:45:06.936,0:45:13.552
Focusing on her personality and life[br]and putting down her accomplishments,

0:45:13.552,0:45:14.967
as a result, I mean,[br]people do say --

0:45:14.967,0:45:16.108
well, she was so arrogant.

0:45:16.108,0:45:18.130
She was clearly manic depressive.

0:45:18.130,0:45:20.416
Therefore, she could not have written[br]the computer program.

0:45:20.416,0:45:23.746
Well, let's talk schizophrenic.

0:45:23.746,0:45:25.302
Let's talk manic depressive.

0:45:25.302,0:45:26.628
Let's talk --[br]I don't know what was going on

0:45:26.628,0:45:27.758
with Isaac Newton.

0:45:27.758,0:45:29.780
But I'm glad it happened,[br]because it furthered science.

0:45:29.780,0:45:33.485
But that's only a claim people make[br]for women, and not men.

0:45:33.485,0:45:36.965
And then this is the 100%[br]all bad, all across the way,

0:45:36.965,0:45:39.162
total fraud point of view.

0:45:39.162,0:45:40.670
There's this great book --[br]if you haven't read it,

0:45:40.670,0:45:41.932
you need to go buy it right away.

0:45:41.932,0:45:44.673
Unfortunately, I think it's out of print,[br]but it's easy to get used.

0:45:44.673,0:45:47.398
Yeah, hm, wonder why it's out of print.

0:45:47.398,0:45:49.401
It's called How to Suppress Women's Writing,

0:45:49.401,0:45:50.711
by Joanna Russ.

0:45:50.711,0:45:52.353
It's a Bible.

0:45:52.353,0:45:54.802
And you can replace all of, like,[br]writing with programming,

0:45:54.802,0:45:56.890
or any kind of science in here,[br]and it's all the same.

0:45:56.890,0:45:59.485
So the general attacks are --

0:45:59.485,0:46:00.441
she didn't write it.

0:46:00.441,0:46:02.633
That's a claim people make about Ada.

0:46:02.633,0:46:04.966
She wrote it,[br]but she only wrote one of it.

0:46:04.966,0:46:06.613
She only wrote one paper, you guys.

0:46:06.613,0:46:07.526
Clearly.

0:46:07.526,0:46:10.108
She wrote it,[br]but she had help.

0:46:10.108,0:46:12.360
Look, she and Babbage corresponded,

0:46:12.360,0:46:14.526
because he was the only --[br]he wouldn't write down

0:46:14.526,0:46:17.055
his own -- the description of his own machine.

0:46:17.055,0:46:17.907
Yeah.

0:46:17.907,0:46:21.719
And then there's sort of a final one,

0:46:21.719,0:46:23.751
which is she wrote it,[br]but it's not art,

0:46:23.751,0:46:25.023
and she's not an artist.

0:46:25.023,0:46:26.024
And that's one of the arguments.

0:46:26.024,0:46:27.447
Well, that wasn't...

0:46:27.447,0:46:29.050
She wrote it,[br]but it wasn't a computer program.

0:46:29.050,0:46:31.949
And she was not a computer programmer.

0:46:31.949,0:46:33.021
How could she be?

0:46:33.021,0:46:33.863
Blah-blah-blah.

0:46:33.863,0:46:35.101
She had no compiler.

0:46:35.101,0:46:36.738
So that's just --

0:46:36.738,0:46:39.937
when you're telling that story,[br]that's what you're subscribing to.

0:46:39.937,0:46:42.530
So here are a few of my ideas

0:46:42.530,0:46:43.838
for new stories we can tell.

0:46:43.838,0:46:48.943
So there's this --[br]we'll start out kind of tame.

0:46:48.943,0:46:53.225
Somebody should write a history[br]of women Victorian mathematicians and scientists,

0:46:53.225,0:46:55.690
and their influence on modern day [br]science and computing,

0:46:55.690,0:46:58.121
and include Ada Lovelace, Mary Somerville,[br]all the rest,

0:46:58.121,0:47:02.438
and things like the women's magazines[br]that had algebra puzzles in them.

0:47:02.438,0:47:05.106
So that would give you, like,[br]the whole big picture,

0:47:05.106,0:47:07.900
instead of being like --[br]oh, this freak who predicted computing.

0:47:07.900,0:47:11.168
I like this one.

0:47:11.168,0:47:12.496
I love Anne Hathaway.

0:47:12.496,0:47:14.623
In a moving and sensitive portrayal,

0:47:14.623,0:47:18.691
Anne Hathaway plays brilliant[br]yet tortured Victorian scientist Ada Lovelace,

0:47:18.691,0:47:21.979
exploring the conflicting pull[br]of her passions towards mathematics,

0:47:21.979,0:47:24.639
art, family, fame, and madness.

0:47:24.639,0:47:27.664
Won Oscars for best actress,[br]best supporting actress,

0:47:27.664,0:47:31.079
so this is going to pass the Bechdel Test, baby.

0:47:31.079,0:47:33.182
And best picture.

0:47:33.182,0:47:36.432
Yeah, and I was kind of thinking[br]of A Beautiful Mind,

0:47:36.432,0:47:37.528
when I wrote this.

0:47:37.528,0:47:38.650
Also Anne Hathaway.

0:47:38.650,0:47:43.446
Maybe you can figure out[br]what I was thinking of here.

0:47:43.446,0:47:47.329
Ada Lovelace and Mary Somerville[br]found an academy for young women,

0:47:47.329,0:47:50.008
where they teach harp, horseback riding,[br]and computer programming.

0:47:50.008,0:47:52.800
The second computer program[br]is a menstrual period tracker.

0:47:52.800,0:47:57.965
Alumnae instigate and lead [br]the information revolution of 1852.

0:47:57.965,0:48:01.633
I imagine that they all wear, like,[br]black PVC dresses,

0:48:01.633,0:48:03.966
and have big Xs on their chests.

0:48:03.966,0:48:05.690
So yeah, that would be super fun.

0:48:05.690,0:48:08.548
Ada Lovelace...

0:48:08.548,0:48:10.338
See if you can get this one.

0:48:10.338,0:48:13.008
Ada Lovelace,[br]a mediocre poet at best...

0:48:13.008,0:48:14.981
Oh my gosh,[br]she was a terrible poet, you guys...

0:48:14.981,0:48:18.213
Programs the Analytical Engine[br]to help her write poetry,

0:48:18.213,0:48:21.633
which she publishes anonymously,[br]under the name Equus Libros.

0:48:21.633,0:48:25.091
All London wonders --[br]is the author man or machine?

0:48:25.091,0:48:27.709
No one suspects the truth,[br]until she reveals all,

0:48:27.709,0:48:29.182
in a live performance.

0:48:29.182,0:48:31.816
And yes, I am talking about horse ebooks.

0:48:31.816,0:48:35.211
And if you don't know what horse ebooks is,[br]it's too late.

0:48:35.211,0:48:36.024
It's over.

0:48:36.024,0:48:37.155
You missed it.

0:48:37.155,0:48:38.900
All right, so this is my last story.

0:48:38.900,0:48:41.537
Ada Lovelace[br]becomes the first literal rock star,

0:48:41.537,0:48:43.626
rather than the figurative one[br]her father was,

0:48:43.626,0:48:45.599
playing computer-generated music,

0:48:45.599,0:48:48.128
and inventing electronic amplification of instruments.

0:48:48.128,0:48:49.963
She makes millions,[br]and blows it all

0:48:49.963,0:48:52.447
on harps, horses, and laudanum.

0:48:52.447,0:48:54.967
Babbage refuses to speak to her[br]ever again.

0:48:54.967,0:48:57.798
That would be a freaking great story.

0:48:57.798,0:48:59.461
I mean, she had that mentality.

0:48:59.461,0:49:00.302
It would be great.

0:49:00.302,0:49:03.586
So yeah, this is sort of[br]trying to look at...

0:49:03.586,0:49:05.758
Even the "positive" stories, unquote,

0:49:05.758,0:49:07.463
that we tell,[br]and showing how limited they are,

0:49:07.463,0:49:09.238
and how they limit women in science,

0:49:09.238,0:49:10.546
and our society in general.

0:49:10.546,0:49:12.097
I didn't even get into the part where --

0:49:12.097,0:49:15.546
because Ada Lovelace was so[br]multidimensional and complex,

0:49:15.546,0:49:20.717
I think computing founded by her[br]would have been immediately connected

0:49:20.717,0:49:25.173
with the Arts and Humanities in a way[br]modern computing,

0:49:25.173,0:49:27.275
which grew out of World War II, was not.

0:49:27.275,0:49:29.876
It would have been so interesting,

0:49:29.876,0:49:32.749
and so that's part of what I want to tell here,[br]with these stories.

0:49:32.749,0:49:36.633
It's like --[br]computing can be so much more,

0:49:36.633,0:49:38.999
and so much better connected[br]with our society and ourselves,

0:49:38.999,0:49:43.218
and also, as a woman,[br]you can be a whole person.

0:49:43.218,0:49:44.795
You can have a family.

0:49:44.795,0:49:46.025
You can sleep around.

0:49:46.025,0:49:47.930
You can do drugs,[br]and you can still do

0:49:47.930,0:49:49.629
fantastic, amazing work.

0:49:49.629,0:49:52.941
So guys have been able to do this[br]for a long, long time.

0:49:52.941,0:49:54.302
Just check it out.

0:49:54.302,0:49:56.336
But I think that would be really cool.

0:49:56.336,0:49:58.879
All right, so questions[br]and answers.

0:49:58.879,0:50:01.678
If you have any great[br]Ada Lovelace story ideas,

0:50:01.678,0:50:03.383
that would be wonderful to hear too.

0:50:03.383,0:50:04.468
Thank you.

0:50:04.468,0:50:12.165
(applause)

0:50:12.165,0:50:13.115
>> Okay, the question is --

0:50:13.115,0:50:16.198
if the students are inspired by this,

0:50:16.198,0:50:19.570
but they don't want to write[br]an Ada Lovelace story,

0:50:19.570,0:50:20.786
what can they do?

0:50:20.786,0:50:22.935
And I really want people[br]to write Ada Lovelace stories.

0:50:22.935,0:50:25.734
One of the things I'm doing[br]as a hobby right now

0:50:25.734,0:50:27.734
is learning how to make zines.

0:50:27.734,0:50:30.567
Just little paper printouts[br]of a few pages,

0:50:30.567,0:50:31.642
that you can, like --

0:50:31.642,0:50:33.452
are so cheap,[br]you can just give them away.

0:50:33.452,0:50:38.898
I think learning more about[br]the history of computing,

0:50:38.898,0:50:41.893
but also the general forms[br]of sexism is, frankly,

0:50:41.893,0:50:44.062
a great idea,[br]to learn how you're using it

0:50:44.062,0:50:45.430
in your everyday life.

0:50:45.430,0:50:49.165
One of the first things I learned[br]from joining a women in computing group,

0:50:49.165,0:50:52.822
after I discovered I was the only[br]Linux kernel programmer in the world

0:50:52.822,0:50:54.703
who was female, in 2002,

0:50:54.703,0:50:57.065
there are simple rules, like --

0:50:57.065,0:51:00.273
if you're trying to help a woman[br]learn something on the computer,

0:51:00.273,0:51:02.042
never take away the keyboard.

0:51:02.042,0:51:03.650
Very simple rule.

0:51:03.650,0:51:04.824
Follow that.

0:51:04.824,0:51:05.945
You'll do a lot better.

0:51:05.945,0:51:09.757
Wait for women to speak[br]and give the answers to questions.

0:51:09.757,0:51:11.226
Things like that.

0:51:11.226,0:51:12.210
So...

0:51:12.210,0:51:13.961
But I really think[br]you should go out and draw,

0:51:13.961,0:51:16.094
or make a rap video,[br]or something like that.

0:51:16.094,0:51:17.431
So...

0:51:17.431,0:51:19.630
>> Okay, wow.

0:51:19.630,0:51:21.506
What a wonderful story.

0:51:21.506,0:51:24.028
(laughter)

0:51:24.028,0:51:26.523
>> Said and expressed.

0:51:26.523,0:51:27.948
So thank you very much.

0:51:27.948,0:51:31.948
(applause)