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(dramatic music)

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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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- You might have assumed
that the computer age began

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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with some geeks out in California.

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Or perhaps with the code
breakers of World War II.

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But the pioneer who
first saw the true power

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of the computer lived way back,

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during the transformative age
of the Industrial Revolution.

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As Queen Victoria takes to the throne

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in the early 19th century,

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Britain is on the brink

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of an even more ambitious revolution,

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the mechanization of thought itself.

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Forged from brass and powered by steam,

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a Victorian computer age.

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(gentle music)

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It took extraordinary foresight

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and yet, in this patriarchal world,

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this visionary wasn't a man.

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Passionate and intelligent,
Lady Ada Lovelace.

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(gentle music)

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I'm Hannah Fry.

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As a mathematician, I want to find out

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how this 19th century lady
prophesies the information age.

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How she published the
first computer program

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as long ago as 1843.

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And how she nearly brought about

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a Victorian computer revolution.

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I want to rediscover the
story of Ada Lovelace,

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the woman who dared to dream
of a world of computers,

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and to uncover her role

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in a remarkable vision of the future.

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(gentle music))

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(birds chirping)

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To find out how this Victorian
lady could have foreseen

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the power of computers, I've
come here, Horsley Towers,

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a day's ride from London

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and her home for most of her adult life.

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Ada had a very privileged background.

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In fact, she was almost
one of Queen Victoria's

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ladies-in-waiting.

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So it was no surprise when she
was married off to Lord King,

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soon to become the Earl of Lovelace,

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a man who was 10 years her senior

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and as practical as Ada was imaginative.

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(gentle music)

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Dickens, Faraday and the
inventor Charles Babbage

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were just some of their
close acquaintances.

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It was a magical, exciting time.

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Two opposing cultures,

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science and romanticism, were colliding.

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My heroine thrived at
the crossroads of both.

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She wrote her dream of
a computerized world

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in this, Taylor's Scientific Memoirs.

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Now, this isn't just any old book.

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This is one of the most
visionary documents

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in the history of science,

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a 65 page blueprint for
a computer revolution.

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It has complex mathematics,

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it has the layout

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for the world's first general
purpose computing machine.

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It even has the world's first
published computer programs

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and in it, Ada suggests that
a machine made from cogs

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and cams and steam and
oil could compose music.

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In effect, it's Ada's key
manifesto for a computer age.

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And all of this as far back as 1843.

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(classical music)

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This document is a fascinating mix

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of science and imagination.

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So how did she manage
to embrace both strands,

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logic and the creative arts?

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(classical music)

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It seems to me that there was one man

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at the epicenter of
everything that Ada did.

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He had a huge influence on her upbringing

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and was the biggest celebrity
in Britain at the time.

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Lord Byron, poet, philanderer,
romantic and Ada's father.

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Ada was his only legitimate daughter

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and he loomed large throughout her life.

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And yet he left her when she
was just a five week old baby

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and he never saw her again.

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Her mother made quite sure of that.

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(gentle music)

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Annabella Milbanke and
Lord Byron married in 1815,

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yet were poles apart.

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Annabella was mathematical
and stiflingly conformist.

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Byron was free-spirited and
cared little for numbers.

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(gentle music)

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The scandalous Lord Byron,

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as well as producing some

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of the most important written
works of the 19th century,

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was famous for drinking
out of a human skull,

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having a pet bear and numerous affairs

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with both men and women.

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Now, one spurned lover,
female, famously put it

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that he was mad, bad
and dangerous to know.

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Annabella and Byron's marriage
lasted for a very long year,

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before it eventually
broke up acrimoniously.

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She kicked him out, covered
his painting with a big curtain

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and forbade Ada from ever looking at it,

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which must have been torturous

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for someone with as
inquisitive a mind as Ada had.

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(gentle music)

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Annabella loathed her estranged husband

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and went about purging the young girl

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of any evidence of her
father's personality.

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"Volatile, poetic
insanity," she called it.

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So she was looking for ways
to try and protect Ada.

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(gentle music)

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Annabella decided to force feed the child

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on a diet of maths and science

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with a zeal bordering on fanaticism,

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even though the subjects were seen

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as the preserve of the male mind.

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(gentle music)

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Augustus De Morgan was Ada's main tutor

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and a brilliant mathematician
in his own right.

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He founded the maths department at UCL,

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which is the university that I work at.

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But he wasn't exactly progressive.

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In a letter that he wrote to Ada's mother,

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he explains why women are best
to avoid doing hard maths.

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"The reason is obvious," he writes.

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"The very great tension
of mind which they require

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"is beyond the strength

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"of a woman's physical
power of application."

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He does recognize Ada's
talents, though, at least,

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in a slightly backhanded compliment.

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"Lady L. has unquestionably
as much power as would require

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"all the strength of
a man's constitution."

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(gentle music)

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She studied voraciously.

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At just 13, she became
fascinated by flight,

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and designed a mechanical bird
that could flap its wings.

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(gentle music))

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She was developing
skills that were coveted

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in the Victorian age of engineering,

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inventiveness and scientific rigor,

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and by the young age of 17,
she was ready to show them off.

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(gentle music)

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(gears clicking)

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The stage her mother chose

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was one of the most sought
after soirees of the day,

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hosted by the famous
inventor Charles Babbage

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and attended by the great and the good.

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(gears clicking)

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A guest wrote at the time,

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One of three qualifications were necessary

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for those who sought to be invited

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intellect, beauty or rank.

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The young lady Lovelace had all three.

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(gentle music)

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At the party, Babbage was keen

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to unveil a new creation
to his select audience.

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(gentle music)

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He called it the difference engine,

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the most ambitious mechanical
calculator ever designed.

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Its mathematical elegance
impressed the young Ada.

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(slow gentle music)

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And this is the actual machine

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that Ada would have seen at Babbage's.

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Just a small sample of
what it could have been,

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had it been built fully,

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but enough to understand how it worked.

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And enough to spark her imagination.

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And maybe somewhere on there still,

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was a couple of Ada's
fingerprints left over.

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The machine would do the work

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of a whole army of mathematicians,

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a body of men who were
actually known as computers.

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This was just 1/7 of an
entire difference engine.

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The full version, constructed
from Babbage's plans,

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can be seen at the London Science Museum.

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Loose floorboard there.

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- [Man] Yeah, (speaking faintly).

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- [Hannah] It's lovingly
tended by curator Tilly Blyth.

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So, for the first time that I ever see it,

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where should I be standing?

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- I think it's nice to stand in the front

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so that you can see--

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- The whole machine--

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- Working in harmony and
have a real sense of it.

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- Okay.

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- But it's also beautiful
from the back as well.

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- Okay, Okay, I'm genuinely
excited about this.

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(gears clicking)

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Wow!

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So you've got the units at
the bottom and then going up,

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tens and hundreds, right?

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- [Tilly] That's right.

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- So every time you go past nine,

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you have to carry up the column?

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Wow.

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Actually, that is incredible.

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(gears clicking)

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It must have seemed like
mechanizing thought itself, right?

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- Yes, they called it
the thinking machine.

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- So what does the machine
actually do, Tilly?

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- So the really incredible
thing about this machine is,

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it works using purely addition.

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It works using something called

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the method of finite differences.

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So this allows you to take any equation

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and work that through
using an approximation,

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but using only addition.

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- So in a way, I suppose this
machine takes the equation,

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breaks it down to smaller and smaller

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and smaller pieces,

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until you end up with something

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so simple it can be done
by the turning of a cog?

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- Yeah, each one of those
cogs is just doing addition

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to the next cog.

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- [Hannah] Adding, adding, adding.

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- Exactly.

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(gears clicking)

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- The method allows simultaneous work

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on a multitude of simple sums.

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Tricky for the human
brain to keep track of,

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but perfect for the methodical
workings of a machine.

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When each addition passes through 10,

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these hypnotic spirals
carry the one up the column.

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At the end,

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the difference engine
automatically prints the answers

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into tables, removing
the risk of human error.

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Why was it important?

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- So, in the 19th century,

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people were using mathematical tables

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for all sorts of things.

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They were using them for engineering,

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they were using them for astronomy,

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but probably most importantly,

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they were using these
tables for navigation.

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So sailors referring to
these mathematical tables

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and if there were errors in
them, then lives could be lost.

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You know, people could be
sailing into the wrong places.

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- [Hannah] It's an ingenious machine,

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but this was not a computer.

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Rather, it was an incredibly
advanced calculator.

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Precise up to 31 decimal places.

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Could you do it one more time?

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- [Tilly] Okay.

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- (laughs) I'm gonna stay on this side.

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This side's gorgeous.

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(gears clicking)
(gentle music)

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At the time Ada saw the difference engine,

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it was just the small demonstration piece.

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For many of the guests that night,

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it was an amusing curiosity.

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But not for her.

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The debutante grasped its significance.

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(machine clicking)

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(suspense music)

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Wife of Ada's tutor, Mrs. De
Morgan, wrote of the night,

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"When most of the guests
looked on with the expression

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" that savages show on
seeing a looking glass,

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"Miss Byron, young as she was,

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"understood its working

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"and saw the great
beauty of the invention."

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It was enough to ignite sparks
between Babbage and Ada,

261
00:15:06,600 --> 00:15:09,660
not sexual sparks, but intellectual ones

262
00:15:09,660 --> 00:15:12,610
and the beginning of
a lifelong friendship.

263
00:15:12,610 --> 00:15:15,770
And Ada's excitement almost
certainly gave Babbage

264
00:15:15,770 --> 00:15:19,574
extra vigor to push forward
with his audacious plans.

265
00:15:19,574 --> 00:15:22,324
(suspense music)

266
00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:28,000
To build such a technologically
advanced machine

267
00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:30,643
would need state-of-the-art manufacturing.

268
00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:35,860
The best engineer was hired to mill

269
00:15:35,860 --> 00:15:40,860
each of the 25000 parts
to exacting tolerances.

270
00:15:41,690 --> 00:15:44,014
It wasn't going to come cheap.

271
00:15:44,014 --> 00:15:48,960
(classical music)
(gears clicking)

272
00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:53,170
But if there was ever an era
for extraordinary projects,

273
00:15:53,170 --> 00:15:55,673
Babbage and Lovelace were in it.

274
00:15:58,180 --> 00:16:02,740
Brunel was engineering the
Great Eastern steamship.

275
00:16:02,740 --> 00:16:07,430
Wheatstone had proposed the
world's first telegraph system.

276
00:16:07,430 --> 00:16:11,200
Darwin was transforming our understanding

277
00:16:11,200 --> 00:16:12,503
of how we had evolved.

278
00:16:13,530 --> 00:16:16,660
And Faraday, Babbage's close friend,

279
00:16:16,660 --> 00:16:19,563
was revealing the secrets of electricity.

280
00:16:23,020 --> 00:16:25,273
Britain celebrated inventiveness.

281
00:16:28,210 --> 00:16:29,770
But all of a sudden,

282
00:16:29,770 --> 00:16:34,770
Babbage shelved his idea of a
grand mechanical calculator.

283
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:40,230
Here at Royal Holloway,

284
00:16:40,230 --> 00:16:44,060
engineer Doron Swade
thinks he knows the reason

285
00:16:44,060 --> 00:16:47,230
for Babbage's change of heart.

286
00:16:47,230 --> 00:16:49,030
Why did Babbage drop the idea

287
00:16:49,030 --> 00:16:51,220
of the difference engine, then?

288
00:16:51,220 --> 00:16:53,350
- The simple answer is,
he had a better idea.

289
00:16:53,350 --> 00:16:54,810
But the circumstances are rather curious.

290
00:16:54,810 --> 00:16:56,410
He had a dispute which was unresolved

291
00:16:56,410 --> 00:16:58,050
with his engineer, Joseph Clement,

292
00:16:58,050 --> 00:17:01,680
and by law in those days, the engineer,

293
00:17:01,680 --> 00:17:04,720
or the toolmaker, owned the drawings.

294
00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:06,310
The drawings belonged to him.

295
00:17:06,310 --> 00:17:08,160
So Babbage could not recover the drawings,

296
00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:09,870
so there was an enforced gap

297
00:17:09,870 --> 00:17:12,120
in his progression of his
difference engine designs.

298
00:17:12,120 --> 00:17:13,050
He was left without the drawings,

299
00:17:13,050 --> 00:17:14,350
he couldn't work on them.

300
00:17:14,350 --> 00:17:16,670
Without his drawings,
he then began to go back

301
00:17:16,670 --> 00:17:17,900
to the first principles and say,

302
00:17:17,900 --> 00:17:19,410
well, what was he trying to do here?

303
00:17:19,410 --> 00:17:21,050
And in the course of those reflections,

304
00:17:21,050 --> 00:17:23,300
he had the second idea which is an engine

305
00:17:23,300 --> 00:17:27,200
that would vastly supersede
in aspiration and capability,

306
00:17:27,200 --> 00:17:29,159
and that was the analytical engine.

307
00:17:29,159 --> 00:17:31,742
(gentle music)

308
00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:35,493
- Babbage's new idea was audacious,

309
00:17:37,270 --> 00:17:41,053
the most complicated
machine ever conceived.

310
00:17:42,710 --> 00:17:45,163
He called it the analytical engine,

311
00:17:46,150 --> 00:17:48,513
and it would define Ada's legacy.

312
00:17:52,490 --> 00:17:53,370
So I've had a little look

313
00:17:53,370 --> 00:17:54,950
at the plans for the analytical engine.

314
00:17:54,950 --> 00:17:57,100
And the first thing
that really strikes you,

315
00:17:57,100 --> 00:17:59,490
especially in comparison
to the difference engine,

316
00:17:59,490 --> 00:18:01,040
is just the size of it.

317
00:18:01,040 --> 00:18:02,820
I mean, this thing is vast, right?

318
00:18:02,820 --> 00:18:04,910
- It is enormous and probably one

319
00:18:04,910 --> 00:18:05,822
of the plans you might have looked at--

320
00:18:05,822 --> 00:18:06,741
- The plans, yeah, yeah, of course.

321
00:18:06,741 --> 00:18:08,750
- Is the plan 25 from 1840.

322
00:18:08,750 --> 00:18:12,300
This is the culmination
of a major piece of work,

323
00:18:12,300 --> 00:18:14,020
done from about 1834 onwards,

324
00:18:14,020 --> 00:18:15,760
and this is where he tried to present

325
00:18:15,760 --> 00:18:18,600
to the world the overall
conception of what he was about.

326
00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:20,930
So this drawing is deeply,
deeply significant.

327
00:18:20,930 --> 00:18:23,750
In it, it shows a machine
that's 15 foot high,

328
00:18:23,750 --> 00:18:25,020
six foot in diameter,

329
00:18:25,020 --> 00:18:27,840
the main thing that
did all the processing,

330
00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:30,840
and then a store, a memory
as we would now call it,

331
00:18:30,840 --> 00:18:32,410
extending almost indefinitely.

332
00:18:32,410 --> 00:18:33,809
Now, his entry-level machine

333
00:18:33,809 --> 00:18:35,313
(Hannah laughs)

334
00:18:35,313 --> 00:18:37,360
had 100 what we would call registers,

335
00:18:37,360 --> 00:18:39,070
what he called variables, 100 of those.

336
00:18:39,070 --> 00:18:41,370
Now, a machine with variables

337
00:18:41,370 --> 00:18:44,820
would be 45 foot long and 15 foot high,

338
00:18:44,820 --> 00:18:46,530
but he spoke of machines 10 times bigger.

339
00:18:46,530 --> 00:18:49,180
He spoke of machines with 1000 variables.

340
00:18:49,180 --> 00:18:53,150
Now, a machine with 1000
variables would be five times

341
00:18:53,150 --> 00:18:54,700
the complete length of this.

342
00:18:54,700 --> 00:18:56,600
That's 90 feet, roughly,
from the end to here.

343
00:18:56,600 --> 00:18:57,470
- Vast, wow.
- Yeah.

344
00:18:57,470 --> 00:18:59,290
And five times that would be the thing.

345
00:18:59,290 --> 00:19:02,330
The entry level machine
would be 45 foot long,

346
00:19:02,330 --> 00:19:05,190
which is from more or
less where that stand is

347
00:19:05,190 --> 00:19:07,630
to the beginning of the red steps.

348
00:19:07,630 --> 00:19:08,463
- Absolutely extraordinary.

349
00:19:08,463 --> 00:19:09,296
- So you're talking about a monster.

350
00:19:09,296 --> 00:19:10,330
- Yeah.

351
00:19:10,330 --> 00:19:13,050
(gentle music)

352
00:19:13,050 --> 00:19:15,950
The analytical engine was so huge,

353
00:19:15,950 --> 00:19:19,313
Babbage designed it to be driven by steam.

354
00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:21,480
But what made it superior

355
00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:25,060
to the difference engine wasn't its size,

356
00:19:25,060 --> 00:19:27,663
but a small, ingenious detail.

357
00:19:29,230 --> 00:19:31,237
The other thing I noticed
when looking at the plans,

358
00:19:31,237 --> 00:19:32,820
and you have to correct
me if I'm wrong here,

359
00:19:32,820 --> 00:19:36,040
but something I thought
was kind of extraordinary

360
00:19:36,040 --> 00:19:38,170
about these plans was,

361
00:19:38,170 --> 00:19:41,800
in all of the vastness of this machine,

362
00:19:41,800 --> 00:19:44,040
there's one thing that really stands out

363
00:19:44,040 --> 00:19:46,870
that makes it a computer, really.

364
00:19:46,870 --> 00:19:50,360
So I had my colleagues print
up a sort of mock up version

365
00:19:50,360 --> 00:19:52,990
of this and I was wondering if
you could explain it for us.

366
00:19:52,990 --> 00:19:54,290
- The conditional arm.
- Yeah.

367
00:19:54,290 --> 00:19:55,740
- But this illustrates the principle

368
00:19:55,740 --> 00:19:57,060
of conditional branching.

369
00:19:57,060 --> 00:19:58,920
It sounds a complex thing, if then.

370
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:00,240
If this is true, do this.

371
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:01,720
If it's not true, do something else.

372
00:20:01,720 --> 00:20:02,840
So there's a branch.

373
00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:04,820
You can take one or
another course of action.

374
00:20:04,820 --> 00:20:07,160
- It's making a decision
right, it's a decision.

375
00:20:07,160 --> 00:20:08,990
- Absolutely, so it can
root its way through,

376
00:20:08,990 --> 00:20:10,690
if you like, a decision space.

377
00:20:10,690 --> 00:20:15,690
So the idea is that this
stud or dowel moves forward

378
00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:18,210
and interrogates the space, see,

379
00:20:18,210 --> 00:20:20,340
Is there anything in that
space so it moves forward.

380
00:20:20,340 --> 00:20:24,320
If this stud, the slug, is
absent, nothing happens.

381
00:20:24,320 --> 00:20:25,960
It stops short and nothing happens.

382
00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:27,740
If this dowel is present,

383
00:20:27,740 --> 00:20:31,000
then that dowel moving forward
will activate this lever.

384
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:32,450
So whether or not this is present,

385
00:20:32,450 --> 00:20:34,940
it will or will not activate that lever.

386
00:20:34,940 --> 00:20:36,670
Now, this is terribly important for,

387
00:20:36,670 --> 00:20:37,940
one is a general principle

388
00:20:37,940 --> 00:20:39,550
of computing that it can do branching.

389
00:20:39,550 --> 00:20:40,830
- That still exists today.

390
00:20:40,830 --> 00:20:42,520
- Absolutely, absolutely.

391
00:20:42,520 --> 00:20:45,450
- So if you did, for
example, 10 divided by three.

392
00:20:45,450 --> 00:20:50,410
It would go 10, seven,
four, one, minus two.

393
00:20:50,410 --> 00:20:51,243
- Absolutely.

394
00:20:51,243 --> 00:20:52,500
And then the next time that thing said,

395
00:20:52,500 --> 00:20:53,660
Have you gone negative?

396
00:20:53,660 --> 00:20:55,230
It would say, oops and activate something

397
00:20:55,230 --> 00:20:57,240
that would multiply by 10
and do the whole thing.

398
00:20:57,240 --> 00:20:58,073
- Amazing.

399
00:20:58,073 --> 00:20:59,480
- This is a revolutionary machine

400
00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:03,333
insofar as it embodies almost
all the logical principles

401
00:21:03,333 --> 00:21:05,840
of a modern, digital, electronic computer

402
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:07,010
which is completely--

403
00:21:07,010 --> 00:21:09,168
- For something in 1840s, astonishing.

404
00:21:09,168 --> 00:21:11,751
(gentle music)

405
00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:16,210
Babbage's plans for a
steam driven computer

406
00:21:16,210 --> 00:21:19,643
went far beyond the comprehension
of his contemporaries.

407
00:21:21,535 --> 00:21:24,285
(gears clicking)

408
00:21:26,610 --> 00:21:28,310
He dreamt that one day,

409
00:21:28,310 --> 00:21:32,610
banks of such engines would
industrialize the production

410
00:21:32,610 --> 00:21:35,830
of faultless mathematical tables,

411
00:21:35,830 --> 00:21:40,034
calculated from any number
of different equations.

412
00:21:40,034 --> 00:21:42,784
(gears clicking)

413
00:21:48,750 --> 00:21:51,220
It fired the imagination

414
00:21:51,220 --> 00:21:54,563
of his young prodigy, Ada Lovelace.

415
00:21:55,720 --> 00:21:59,340
She threw herself into
understanding the complexities

416
00:21:59,340 --> 00:22:02,240
of the machine and eventually began

417
00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:05,550
to realize even more than Babbage himself,

418
00:22:05,550 --> 00:22:08,850
the full extent of what
the analytical engine

419
00:22:08,850 --> 00:22:10,253
could actually think about.

420
00:22:11,187 --> 00:22:13,810
(gears clicking)

421
00:22:13,810 --> 00:22:18,723
The mechanics, the hardware,
were only half the story.

422
00:22:20,860 --> 00:22:23,370
The computer needed software

423
00:22:23,370 --> 00:22:25,550
if it were to be versatile enough

424
00:22:25,550 --> 00:22:28,763
to calculate any type of equation.

425
00:22:30,530 --> 00:22:34,603
And it was here that Lovelace
would reveal her genius.

426
00:22:35,681 --> 00:22:38,264
(gentle music)

427
00:22:47,380 --> 00:22:50,170
Graphic novelist Sydney Padua is somewhat

428
00:22:50,170 --> 00:22:52,410
of an accidental expert

429
00:22:52,410 --> 00:22:54,833
when it comes to Babbage and Lovelace.

430
00:22:58,139 --> 00:23:01,080
What got you into Ada
Lovelace in the first place?

431
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:03,420
- It was a complete accident.

432
00:23:03,420 --> 00:23:05,680
I did a very short biographical comic

433
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:09,650
and just doing that little
bio you know of four pages

434
00:23:09,650 --> 00:23:11,600
or three pages or whatever,

435
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:13,400
I became completely mesmerized

436
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,330
by this person and the
machinery and the period.

437
00:23:16,330 --> 00:23:20,470
The contrast was so violent and exciting,

438
00:23:20,470 --> 00:23:22,880
and also they were just
wonderful personalities.

439
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:26,270
I mean, I just really
liked them as people.

440
00:23:26,270 --> 00:23:29,341
- Her character, did complement Babbage?

441
00:23:29,341 --> 00:23:31,990
- (laughs) I mean, in a sense
they were very similar people,

442
00:23:31,990 --> 00:23:34,767
you know, they were quite
literal minded, they were very--

443
00:23:34,767 --> 00:23:35,600
- Headstrong.

444
00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:37,110
- Headstrong, stubborn, independent,

445
00:23:37,110 --> 00:23:39,230
they knew what they wanted.

446
00:23:39,230 --> 00:23:42,220
She liked to pursue her obsessions.

447
00:23:42,220 --> 00:23:44,590
When she really wanted
to find something out,

448
00:23:44,590 --> 00:23:47,720
she wouldn't rest until she
got to the bottom of it.

449
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:48,850
- Let me see your drawing.

450
00:23:48,850 --> 00:23:49,833
- [Sydney] There you go.

451
00:23:51,270 --> 00:23:52,979
- (laughs) I love it.

452
00:23:52,979 --> 00:23:54,290
She's not exactly ladylike in that one.

453
00:23:54,290 --> 00:23:55,440
Why is she wearing trousers?

454
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:57,149
- Oh, you can't wear skirts
in the engines, very (laughs).

455
00:23:57,149 --> 00:23:58,988
- Oh, well.
- That's very--

456
00:23:58,988 --> 00:23:59,821
- [Hannah] That'll be
completely impractical.

457
00:23:59,821 --> 00:24:02,013
- It's a very serious hazard there.

458
00:24:04,885 --> 00:24:07,410
(gears clicking)

459
00:24:07,410 --> 00:24:09,610
- Not one for hanging around,

460
00:24:09,610 --> 00:24:11,990
Ada went on a tour of the cotton mills

461
00:24:11,990 --> 00:24:13,410
of the North of England

462
00:24:13,410 --> 00:24:16,507
immediately after Babbage
showed her the plans.

463
00:24:19,460 --> 00:24:24,103
She came to see this, the Jacquard loom.

464
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:28,570
A state-of-the-art device

465
00:24:28,570 --> 00:24:31,733
that automated the
weaving of patterned silk.

466
00:24:33,850 --> 00:24:37,510
Babbage had an idea to
repurpose the technology

467
00:24:37,510 --> 00:24:40,253
to instruct his new analytical engine.

468
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:49,098
- I'll show you how it works,
if you come through this way.

469
00:24:49,098 --> 00:24:51,350
May like to stand over
there, get a good view.

470
00:24:51,350 --> 00:24:54,880
Now, very simply, the
Jacquard is up the top

471
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:58,320
and it's selecting which
strings to lift up.

472
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:00,590
So when you press the treadle,

473
00:25:00,590 --> 00:25:02,760
you'll hear a clunk up the top

474
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:05,203
but you'll see these strings lift up.

475
00:25:05,203 --> 00:25:06,766
- [Hannah] Okay.

476
00:25:06,766 --> 00:25:09,683
(machine clicking)

477
00:25:26,446 --> 00:25:28,997
- [Mike] So you can see
the design building up

478
00:25:28,997 --> 00:25:29,830
- [Hannah] Yeah.

479
00:25:29,830 --> 00:25:30,740
- [Mike] And we've now got a leaf there.

480
00:25:30,740 --> 00:25:32,720
- [Hannah] Actually relatively quick.

481
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:33,553
- [Mike] Yeah.

482
00:25:33,553 --> 00:25:35,776
- Quicker than I was expecting.

483
00:25:35,776 --> 00:25:37,080
(machine clicking)

484
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,300
The Jacquard mechanism
meant complicated patterns

485
00:25:40,300 --> 00:25:43,683
could be manufactured
by unskilled workers,

486
00:25:44,690 --> 00:25:49,690
the loom being controlled
by a series of punch cards.

487
00:25:50,010 --> 00:25:51,410
- The punch card goes on top

488
00:25:52,865 --> 00:25:54,700
and each of these lines
up with a little pin.

489
00:25:54,700 --> 00:25:58,050
A hole, the pin just goes right through.

490
00:25:58,050 --> 00:25:59,940
No hole, the pin is pushed.

491
00:25:59,940 --> 00:26:01,300
- [Hannah] Okay.

492
00:26:01,300 --> 00:26:03,620
- [Sydney] So if you push
it down then you'll see,

493
00:26:03,620 --> 00:26:05,240
according to the pattern on the cards,

494
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:07,993
some of the little levers
will go in, some won't.

495
00:26:09,590 --> 00:26:12,980
- [Hannah] So now suddenly,
whatever was on the card

496
00:26:12,980 --> 00:26:15,560
has been translated into these
hooks moving up and down.

497
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:17,080
- Yeah.
- So that difference then,

498
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:18,590
hole, no hole is the thing

499
00:26:18,590 --> 00:26:20,940
that causes something to happen back here.

500
00:26:20,940 --> 00:26:23,613
- [Sydney] Yeah, it's a kind of binary.

501
00:26:26,700 --> 00:26:29,200
- This was the height of technology

502
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:31,453
in a fast modernizing world.

503
00:26:33,350 --> 00:26:34,960
What do you think people were making

504
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:36,390
of these machines at that time?

505
00:26:36,390 --> 00:26:38,490
How do they feel about them?

506
00:26:38,490 --> 00:26:40,610
- I think a lot of people
found them quite unsettling,

507
00:26:40,610 --> 00:26:43,960
if you kind of read period
descriptions of it, you know,

508
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,830
they sound a bit nervous about it.

509
00:26:46,830 --> 00:26:47,810
Where might this lead?

510
00:26:47,810 --> 00:26:49,460
You know, this is where
you start seeing people

511
00:26:49,460 --> 00:26:51,910
comparing humans to automata.

512
00:26:51,910 --> 00:26:54,780
It does everything automatically,
it turns automatically,

513
00:26:54,780 --> 00:26:57,090
it selects all the threads automatically.

514
00:26:57,090 --> 00:26:58,500
- Almost like it's making decisions.

515
00:26:58,500 --> 00:26:59,360
- [Sydney] Yeah, exactly.

516
00:26:59,360 --> 00:27:02,915
I mean, the machine is
literally selecting the threads.

517
00:27:02,915 --> 00:27:05,310
(machine clicking)

518
00:27:05,310 --> 00:27:06,500
- [Hannah] The automation

519
00:27:06,500 --> 00:27:10,020
of skilled labor was controversial.

520
00:27:10,020 --> 00:27:14,390
A group of textile workers
known as Luddites protested

521
00:27:14,390 --> 00:27:17,700
that the technology
would steal their jobs.

522
00:27:17,700 --> 00:27:21,040
Ironically, Ada's father, Lord Byron,

523
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:23,693
was a vocal supporter of their movement.

524
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:28,240
She had no such worries,

525
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:31,090
but saw how the punch cards could work

526
00:27:31,090 --> 00:27:34,530
with Babbage's new analytical engine.

527
00:27:34,530 --> 00:27:36,940
- The punch cards bringing

528
00:27:36,940 --> 00:27:38,953
this element of choice, actually.

529
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,010
The power is in whoever
programmed the cards.

530
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:51,590
- Ada was fascinated by
the men making the cards.

531
00:27:51,590 --> 00:27:54,330
They were translating
complicated patterns,

532
00:27:54,330 --> 00:27:56,220
such as a flower petal,

533
00:27:56,220 --> 00:27:59,813
into a simple language
the loom could understand.

534
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,030
Hole, no hole.

535
00:28:03,030 --> 00:28:06,201
The world's first binary machine code.

536
00:28:06,201 --> 00:28:08,784
(gentle music)

537
00:28:12,110 --> 00:28:13,597
She later wrote,

538
00:28:13,597 --> 00:28:17,297
"We may say most aptly
that the analytical engine

539
00:28:17,297 --> 00:28:19,707
"weaves algebraic patterns

540
00:28:19,707 --> 00:28:23,930
"just as the Jacquard loom
weaves flowers and leaves."

541
00:28:23,930 --> 00:28:26,847
(machine clicking)

542
00:28:29,652 --> 00:28:34,319
Her enforced scientific
upbringing was paying dividends.

543
00:28:35,350 --> 00:28:39,370
If Ada's early education was
driven, sometimes cruelly,

544
00:28:39,370 --> 00:28:41,870
by her mother's wishes to purge her

545
00:28:41,870 --> 00:28:44,500
of her father's poetical madness,

546
00:28:44,500 --> 00:28:49,430
then Ada's 20s was fired
by mathematical ambition.

547
00:28:49,430 --> 00:28:51,410
She once told her mother that she wanted

548
00:28:51,410 --> 00:28:55,750
to compensate for
Byron's misguided genius.

549
00:28:55,750 --> 00:28:56,977
In fact, she said,

550
00:28:56,977 --> 00:29:01,027
"If he has transmitted to me
any portion of his genius,

551
00:29:01,027 --> 00:29:02,717
"then I will use it to bring out

552
00:29:02,717 --> 00:29:05,370
"great truths and principles."

553
00:29:05,370 --> 00:29:08,720
(gentle music)

554
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:11,270
So over the next 10 years,

555
00:29:11,270 --> 00:29:14,053
as well as getting married
and having three children,

556
00:29:14,890 --> 00:29:17,610
she used her intellect to absorb

557
00:29:17,610 --> 00:29:20,080
and uncover the maths needed

558
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:23,463
to demonstrate the abilities
of the analytical engine.

559
00:29:25,050 --> 00:29:27,210
She also started to grasp

560
00:29:27,210 --> 00:29:30,693
what Babbage's engine
might be truly capable of.

561
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:33,340
The problem was,

562
00:29:33,340 --> 00:29:36,480
her relationship with
Babbage was not equal.

563
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:39,313
He was the lecturer and she the student.

564
00:29:40,830 --> 00:29:45,703
Then, in 1842, she got a
chance to turn the tables.

565
00:29:47,140 --> 00:29:51,110
Babbage was woefully inadequate
at promoting his machine,

566
00:29:51,110 --> 00:29:52,770
and, in fact, much of what we know

567
00:29:52,770 --> 00:29:56,910
about the analytical engine
comes from this key book.

568
00:29:56,910 --> 00:30:00,630
It started with Ada's
translations of the writings

569
00:30:00,630 --> 00:30:02,960
of an Italian military engineer

570
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:07,000
after he attended one of
Babbage's rare lectures

571
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:10,157
and it's entitled "Article XXIX

572
00:30:10,157 --> 00:30:13,097
"Sketch of the analytical engine invented

573
00:30:13,097 --> 00:30:14,987
"by Charles Babbage Esquire,

574
00:30:14,987 --> 00:30:17,497
"by L. F. Menabrea of Turin,

575
00:30:17,497 --> 00:30:20,207
"Officer of the Military Engineers."

576
00:30:22,830 --> 00:30:27,150
Luigi Menabrea's notes
were impressively detailed,

577
00:30:27,150 --> 00:30:30,860
but, like Babbage, he
limited the capabilities

578
00:30:30,860 --> 00:30:35,713
of the engine only to mathematics,
making for a tough read.

579
00:30:37,100 --> 00:30:39,550
It must have driven her mad.

580
00:30:39,550 --> 00:30:43,430
She knew the engine way
better than this Luigi guy

581
00:30:43,430 --> 00:30:44,263
and yet here she was,

582
00:30:44,263 --> 00:30:46,967
having to churn it out like a secretary.

583
00:30:46,967 --> 00:30:49,627
"Now, to conceive how these
operations may be reproduced

584
00:30:49,627 --> 00:30:51,377
"by a machine, suppose the latter

585
00:30:51,377 --> 00:30:53,677
"to have three dials designated as A, B, C

586
00:30:53,677 --> 00:30:55,327
"on each of which are
traced, say 1000 divisions,

587
00:30:55,327 --> 00:30:58,550
"by way of example, over
which a needle shall pass."

588
00:30:58,550 --> 00:31:00,100
Babbage suggested to Ada

589
00:31:00,100 --> 00:31:02,430
that this might be a wasted opportunity

590
00:31:02,430 --> 00:31:04,680
and that she should add
some of her own thoughts

591
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:07,330
to accompany the translation.

592
00:31:07,330 --> 00:31:11,701
She went at it, in her words,
"Like a devil possessed."

593
00:31:11,701 --> 00:31:15,030
(gentle music)

594
00:31:15,030 --> 00:31:17,343
Day and night, Ada toiled.

595
00:31:19,180 --> 00:31:22,010
For nine months, she
formulated her thoughts

596
00:31:22,010 --> 00:31:25,260
on not so much how the
analytical engine worked,

597
00:31:25,260 --> 00:31:28,830
but rather the computational possibilities

598
00:31:28,830 --> 00:31:30,823
of such a powerful machine.

599
00:31:37,170 --> 00:31:41,200
Ada's notes ended up being
twice the length of the original

600
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:42,260
and there are even some moments

601
00:31:42,260 --> 00:31:45,740
where she seems to be
addressing Babbage directly.

602
00:31:45,740 --> 00:31:48,330
She talks about the use of the punch cards

603
00:31:48,330 --> 00:31:51,510
and even gives some
examples of configurations.

604
00:31:51,510 --> 00:31:54,750
And here, she even writes a program

605
00:31:54,750 --> 00:31:57,570
for how to create Bernoulli numbers.

606
00:31:57,570 --> 00:31:59,550
Now, Bernoulli numbers
are a sequence of numbers

607
00:31:59,550 --> 00:32:01,510
that are important in mathematics,

608
00:32:01,510 --> 00:32:05,510
but what Ada's done is
written almost a recipe

609
00:32:05,510 --> 00:32:07,510
for how to make these numbers.

610
00:32:07,510 --> 00:32:10,150
A series of step-by-step instructions

611
00:32:10,150 --> 00:32:12,433
that can be read by the engine.

612
00:32:12,433 --> 00:32:14,825
(gentle music)

613
00:32:14,825 --> 00:32:18,950
At the age of 27, Lovelace
had articulated the language

614
00:32:18,950 --> 00:32:20,680
that could instruct the machine

615
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:22,923
to weave her algebraic patterns.

616
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:29,430
I suppose it's a bit controversial

617
00:32:29,430 --> 00:32:32,990
to say exactly where the
balance of credit lies

618
00:32:32,990 --> 00:32:35,730
between Ada and Babbage for this program.

619
00:32:35,730 --> 00:32:37,800
Ultimately, it was Babbage's machine,

620
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:41,340
so he must have known
how the program worked.

621
00:32:41,340 --> 00:32:43,440
But what you can't argue with is

622
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,720
that this book makes Ada

623
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:50,240
the world's first published
computer programmer in 1843.

624
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:56,063
But, for me, it's not where
her real contribution lies.

625
00:33:00,117 --> 00:33:02,867
(birds chirping)

626
00:33:05,930 --> 00:33:09,080
Her notes show Ada was understanding

627
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:13,883
how to unlock the full potential
of a computing machine.

628
00:33:17,530 --> 00:33:20,910
Mathematicians see the world
in a very particular way.

629
00:33:20,910 --> 00:33:23,510
As much as you can
appreciate a day like this,

630
00:33:23,510 --> 00:33:25,850
you also see the mathematical patterns

631
00:33:25,850 --> 00:33:27,470
everywhere around you.

632
00:33:27,470 --> 00:33:30,210
Everything from the movement
of the sun in the sky

633
00:33:30,210 --> 00:33:33,880
to the surface tension in
the ripples on the water

634
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,050
and the fractal nature of the trees.

635
00:33:37,050 --> 00:33:38,530
And Ada, as a mathematician,

636
00:33:38,530 --> 00:33:40,850
would have been exactly the same.

637
00:33:40,850 --> 00:33:42,560
But it's not just in the natural world.

638
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:44,210
If she was listening to music,

639
00:33:44,210 --> 00:33:46,080
she would have heard the harmonics

640
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:48,330
and thought about the
mathematical patterns

641
00:33:48,330 --> 00:33:51,114
that underpin the way that
the notes are created.

642
00:33:51,114 --> 00:33:54,100
(classical music)

643
00:33:54,100 --> 00:33:57,080
She realized because Babbage's machine

644
00:33:57,080 --> 00:34:01,540
could manipulate numbers and
the world is made of numbers,

645
00:34:01,540 --> 00:34:04,693
the analytical engine
could manipulate anything.

646
00:34:05,606 --> 00:34:08,439
(classical music)

647
00:34:11,250 --> 00:34:14,120
Ada had this leap of imagination

648
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:18,590
that saw the machine as way
beyond just a calculator.

649
00:34:18,590 --> 00:34:20,327
In her notes she writes,

650
00:34:20,327 --> 00:34:22,787
"The engine might compose elaborate

651
00:34:22,787 --> 00:34:26,397
"and scientific music of any degree

652
00:34:26,397 --> 00:34:29,000
"of complexity or extent."

653
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:31,890
She envisages the analytical engine

654
00:34:31,890 --> 00:34:36,210
as way more than Babbage,
who essentially just saw it

655
00:34:36,210 --> 00:34:39,323
as an enormous mechanical number cruncher.

656
00:34:40,989 --> 00:34:45,989
(machines clicking)
(classical music)

657
00:34:47,540 --> 00:34:52,540
Where Babbage just saw
numbers, she also saw music.

658
00:34:53,915 --> 00:34:57,332
(upbeat classical music)

659
00:35:02,550 --> 00:35:05,260
For her, the analytical engine was a tool

660
00:35:05,260 --> 00:35:07,787
to investigate unseen worlds.

661
00:35:10,625 --> 00:35:13,307
The mathematics that underpin us all.

662
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:20,920
She knew it had the potential
to change the world.

663
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:30,487
She wrote, "A new and
powerful language is developed

664
00:35:30,487 --> 00:35:33,537
"for the future use of analysis."

665
00:35:34,380 --> 00:35:36,420
Ada had voiced the aspirations

666
00:35:36,420 --> 00:35:38,993
and possibilities of computing.

667
00:35:40,310 --> 00:35:43,517
Babbage was astounded by her vision.

668
00:35:43,517 --> 00:35:47,287
"The more I read your notes,
the more surprised I am

669
00:35:47,287 --> 00:35:50,567
"and regret not having earlier explored

670
00:35:50,567 --> 00:35:53,988
"so rich a vein of the noblest metal."

671
00:35:53,988 --> 00:35:57,600
(classical music)

672
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:00,260
Babbage wrote a letter to Michael Faraday

673
00:36:00,260 --> 00:36:02,567
in which he describes her as,

674
00:36:02,567 --> 00:36:06,047
"That enchantress who's
thrown her magical spell

675
00:36:06,047 --> 00:36:08,717
"over the most abstract of sciences

676
00:36:08,717 --> 00:36:12,817
"and has grasped it with a
force few masculine intellects

677
00:36:12,817 --> 00:36:14,807
"could have exerted over it."

678
00:36:15,830 --> 00:36:17,500
To understand how she was able

679
00:36:17,500 --> 00:36:19,790
to make this leap of thought,

680
00:36:19,790 --> 00:36:22,730
it's important to remember
the inventiveness of the time

681
00:36:22,730 --> 00:36:26,773
that she lived in and
also who her father was.

682
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:33,040
Ada had creativity in her blood
and was educated in science.

683
00:36:33,540 --> 00:36:35,360
She understood that the numbers

684
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:38,760
on the engine could be
replaced with symbols

685
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:42,270
and represent something
other than just quantities.

686
00:36:42,270 --> 00:36:45,493
She was on the brink of
a new age of discovery.

687
00:36:47,346 --> 00:36:48,620
(crowd shouting)

688
00:36:48,620 --> 00:36:52,180
But that's not how it turned out.

689
00:36:52,180 --> 00:36:54,024
So what went wrong?

690
00:36:54,024 --> 00:36:56,774
(crowd shouting)

691
00:36:58,870 --> 00:37:02,910
To really prove the concept
of a computerized world,

692
00:37:02,910 --> 00:37:06,880
money needed to be raised to
build the analytical engine,

693
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:10,840
but that wasn't gonna be
easy with Babbage in control.

694
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,570
He'd already been given a considerable sum

695
00:37:13,570 --> 00:37:17,170
of government money to
build his previous machine

696
00:37:17,170 --> 00:37:19,190
and yet he delivered no engine,

697
00:37:19,190 --> 00:37:24,190
nor any change from the 17000
pounds that they'd given him,

698
00:37:24,220 --> 00:37:28,755
roughly the cost of two Royal
Navy warships at the time.

699
00:37:28,755 --> 00:37:31,505
(crowd shouting)

700
00:37:32,370 --> 00:37:34,750
There was much disquiet in parliament

701
00:37:34,750 --> 00:37:38,353
over the apparent waste
of government money.

702
00:37:38,353 --> 00:37:41,100
(gentle music)

703
00:37:41,100 --> 00:37:46,100
None of this was helped by
Babbage's irascible personality.

704
00:37:46,230 --> 00:37:48,150
He could be a really difficult man

705
00:37:48,150 --> 00:37:50,060
and was constantly getting into arguments

706
00:37:50,060 --> 00:37:52,320
with politicians over money.

707
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:54,940
After one particularly ferocious row

708
00:37:54,940 --> 00:37:57,900
with the Prime Minister
at the time, Robert Peel,

709
00:37:57,900 --> 00:38:01,007
Peel made his thoughts known in a letter.

710
00:38:01,007 --> 00:38:03,497
"What shall we do to
get rid of Mr. Babbage

711
00:38:03,497 --> 00:38:05,767
"and his calculating machine?

712
00:38:05,767 --> 00:38:09,910
"It would be worthless as
far as science is concerned."

713
00:38:09,910 --> 00:38:11,440
With Babbage at the helm,

714
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:15,366
it looked like the analytical
engine was dead in the water.

715
00:38:15,366 --> 00:38:18,116
(crowd shouting)

716
00:38:21,130 --> 00:38:24,466
And then up stepped Lady Lovelace.

717
00:38:24,466 --> 00:38:27,133
(bells chiming)

718
00:38:32,569 --> 00:38:35,319
(birds chirping)

719
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:42,003
Ada had a plan to get the
analytical engine funded.

720
00:38:44,610 --> 00:38:49,430
She knew that she was famous,
eloquent, frighteningly bright

721
00:38:49,430 --> 00:38:51,210
and the only person in the world

722
00:38:51,210 --> 00:38:55,370
that had recognized the full
potential of the engine,

723
00:38:55,370 --> 00:38:57,973
not just for science but for the Empire.

724
00:38:59,650 --> 00:39:04,580
Her proposal to Babbage was
going to be a sensitive subject.

725
00:39:04,580 --> 00:39:08,460
In a letter dated 14th of August, 1843,

726
00:39:08,460 --> 00:39:12,277
after a few platitudes, she broached it.

727
00:39:12,277 --> 00:39:14,697
"I must now come to a practical question

728
00:39:14,697 --> 00:39:16,337
"in respecting the future.

729
00:39:16,337 --> 00:39:19,197
"Would there be any chance
of you allowing myself

730
00:39:19,197 --> 00:39:21,737
"to conduct the business for you,

731
00:39:21,737 --> 00:39:24,127
"your own undivided energies being devoted

732
00:39:24,127 --> 00:39:26,930
"to the execution of the work?"

733
00:39:26,930 --> 00:39:30,200
Basically, you stick to building the thing

734
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:33,897
because you're a liability when
it comes to getting it made.

735
00:39:33,897 --> 00:39:36,527
"You will wonder over this last query,

736
00:39:36,527 --> 00:39:40,450
"but I strongly advise
you not to reject it."

737
00:39:40,450 --> 00:39:44,410
(gentle music)
(machine clicking)

738
00:39:44,410 --> 00:39:48,100
Her somewhat presumptuous
tone reflects the passion

739
00:39:48,100 --> 00:39:49,623
she felt for the engine.

740
00:39:51,650 --> 00:39:54,600
Writing her notes had
revealed the possibilities

741
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:56,253
of a wondrous future,

742
00:39:57,290 --> 00:40:00,093
one she was desperate to bring to life.

743
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:07,940
But it appears that Ada had
crossed a line with Babbage.

744
00:40:07,940 --> 00:40:10,600
He refused all of her conditions

745
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:13,240
and any relinquishment of control.

746
00:40:13,240 --> 00:40:14,748
He said no.

747
00:40:14,748 --> 00:40:17,331
(gentle music)

748
00:40:19,759 --> 00:40:22,300
(pages fluttering)

749
00:40:22,300 --> 00:40:23,220
It's not clear

750
00:40:23,220 --> 00:40:26,373
why her friend and mentor
turned his back on her.

751
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:30,003
But I suspect she understood.

752
00:40:31,430 --> 00:40:34,113
She'd chosen to make her name in science,

753
00:40:35,490 --> 00:40:38,263
traditionally an all male domain.

754
00:40:40,410 --> 00:40:42,990
Even her tutor, Augustus De Morgan,

755
00:40:42,990 --> 00:40:45,670
impressed as he was by Ada's ability,

756
00:40:45,670 --> 00:40:47,900
thought that she would fatigue herself

757
00:40:47,900 --> 00:40:50,400
with a struggle of mind and body.

758
00:40:52,521 --> 00:40:55,022
(announcer chattering)

759
00:40:55,022 --> 00:40:59,654
- [Man] it's factual young and old

760
00:40:59,654 --> 00:41:04,654
(announcer chattering)
(upbeat music)

761
00:41:13,150 --> 00:41:14,462
It's likely that Babbage assumed

762
00:41:14,462 --> 00:41:16,790
that if he couldn't raise the money,

763
00:41:16,790 --> 00:41:18,793
then Lovelace certainly couldn't.

764
00:41:21,070 --> 00:41:25,613
Women in Victorian society
were not seen as equals.

765
00:41:27,946 --> 00:41:30,590
(announcer chattering)
(mic squealing)

766
00:41:30,590 --> 00:41:33,400
With her scientific ambitions in jeopardy,

767
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:37,072
she came here and started gambling.

768
00:41:37,072 --> 00:41:40,510
(dramatic music)

769
00:41:40,510 --> 00:41:43,180
It raises the intriguing possibility

770
00:41:43,180 --> 00:41:45,360
that she was trying to raise money

771
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:47,603
for her beloved analytical engine.

772
00:41:50,540 --> 00:41:52,380
I don't think that Ada had gone

773
00:41:52,380 --> 00:41:54,640
completely bonkers just yet anyway.

774
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,040
Instead, she was thinking
about the gambling

775
00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,380
from a mathematical perspective

776
00:41:59,380 --> 00:42:01,190
in the way that she always did.

777
00:42:01,190 --> 00:42:03,450
Now, if you look at
gambling mathematically,

778
00:42:03,450 --> 00:42:04,330
suddenly you don't really care

779
00:42:04,330 --> 00:42:05,860
about the reality of the situation,

780
00:42:05,860 --> 00:42:07,320
the noise of the hooves

781
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:10,450
or the emotion of placing a bet itself.

782
00:42:10,450 --> 00:42:13,650
Instead, it's as though you're
just thinking about numbers

783
00:42:13,650 --> 00:42:16,943
on a page in a kind of
dispassionate way, almost.

784
00:42:17,810 --> 00:42:19,920
- [Announcer] So, nine runners,

785
00:42:19,920 --> 00:42:22,630
and the latest betting,
secret missile gets

786
00:42:22,630 --> 00:42:26,120
an open betting of four
to one on her way to--

787
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:28,810
- [Hannah] Logic over emotion.

788
00:42:28,810 --> 00:42:31,383
Exactly how Ada had been trained.

789
00:42:35,030 --> 00:42:38,720
She knew even the smallest miscalculations

790
00:42:38,720 --> 00:42:41,263
by the bookmakers could be exploited.

791
00:42:42,310 --> 00:42:44,893
(gentle music)

792
00:42:47,300 --> 00:42:51,842
She was gambling that her
maths was better than theirs.

793
00:42:51,842 --> 00:42:54,425
(gentle music)

794
00:42:59,138 --> 00:43:01,170
Biographer Ben Woolley has researched

795
00:43:01,170 --> 00:43:04,973
this particularly shady
part of Lovelace's life.

796
00:43:07,457 --> 00:43:08,290
- What are your odds?

797
00:43:08,290 --> 00:43:09,123
- Eight to 11.

798
00:43:09,123 --> 00:43:09,990
- Eight to 11?
- Yeah.

799
00:43:09,990 --> 00:43:12,110
- So that means that if you put,

800
00:43:12,110 --> 00:43:14,233
well, if you put a fiver on,

801
00:43:15,580 --> 00:43:16,860
you're gonna be getting?

802
00:43:16,860 --> 00:43:17,760
- Eight pounds 64.

803
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:21,702
(people chattering)

804
00:43:21,702 --> 00:43:23,450
- [Ben] Christopher Marlowe,
Christopher Marlowe, I think.

805
00:43:23,450 --> 00:43:24,928
- Hello, can I have a fiver?

806
00:43:24,928 --> 00:43:26,698
Ooh, no, fiver on Christopher Marlowe.

807
00:43:26,698 --> 00:43:29,336
- Five pound win, number
one, Christopher Marlowe.

808
00:43:29,336 --> 00:43:30,169
There's your ticket, darling.

809
00:43:30,169 --> 00:43:31,230
Thank you very much.

810
00:43:31,230 --> 00:43:33,610
- [Announcer] Christopher Marlowe.

811
00:43:33,610 --> 00:43:35,483
- What does he even look like?

812
00:43:35,483 --> 00:43:38,176
This is exactly what you shouldn't do

813
00:43:38,176 --> 00:43:39,009
if you're a mathematician,

814
00:43:39,009 --> 00:43:40,260
is just pick a horse based on its name.

815
00:43:40,260 --> 00:43:41,093
- Yeah, I know.

816
00:43:41,093 --> 00:43:42,860
Well, that's the element of risk.

817
00:43:42,860 --> 00:43:44,836
- Well, it's good fun anyway.

818
00:43:44,836 --> 00:43:47,503
(mic squealing)

819
00:43:50,527 --> 00:43:53,277
(dramatic music)

820
00:43:55,768 --> 00:43:58,350
So, why was she gambling
in the first place?

821
00:43:58,350 --> 00:44:00,080
I mean why would she, why
did she become so attracted

822
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:01,790
to the horse races at all?

823
00:44:01,790 --> 00:44:04,430
- Well, one speculation, one
possibility is the reason

824
00:44:04,430 --> 00:44:07,140
that she got into gambling
in this big way was

825
00:44:07,140 --> 00:44:09,200
because she wanted to raise the money

826
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:10,830
for the analytical engine.

827
00:44:10,830 --> 00:44:14,380
Since Babbage had come up
with this amazing machine,

828
00:44:14,380 --> 00:44:16,440
this sort of precursor
of the modern computer,

829
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:17,890
this mechanical computer,

830
00:44:17,890 --> 00:44:19,700
and she'd written these notes about it,

831
00:44:19,700 --> 00:44:23,090
she'd become very personally
involved in the whole thing

832
00:44:23,090 --> 00:44:25,660
and perhaps she saw this as an opportunity

833
00:44:25,660 --> 00:44:28,888
of raising the enormous amount
of money needed to, you know,

834
00:44:28,888 --> 00:44:31,825
bring it into fruition, to
actually build the thing.

835
00:44:31,825 --> 00:44:35,117
(gentle music)

836
00:44:35,117 --> 00:44:37,495
(hooves thundering)

837
00:44:37,495 --> 00:44:38,796
- [Announcer] And they're
going, they're off.

838
00:44:38,796 --> 00:44:40,282
And their racing.

839
00:44:40,282 --> 00:44:43,525
(announcer chattering)

840
00:44:43,525 --> 00:44:45,043
Is on the outside.

841
00:44:45,043 --> 00:44:46,750
- [Hannah] Was she doing
this gambling alone?

842
00:44:46,750 --> 00:44:49,520
- No, she had a little
coterie of men surrounding her

843
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:52,530
which effectively acted
as a gambling syndicate.

844
00:44:52,530 --> 00:44:55,640
People like, well, there
was a chap Nightingale,

845
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,770
almost certainly Florence
Nightingale's father.

846
00:44:58,770 --> 00:45:01,100
Although it's all fairly
secretive, the names,

847
00:45:01,100 --> 00:45:03,363
it's not entirely clear who they are.

848
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:06,070
There's another one called John Crosse.

849
00:45:06,070 --> 00:45:07,880
- Is that the one who became her lover?

850
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:11,080
- Yes, John Crosse was
the son of Andrew Crosse,

851
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:13,820
who was this famous electrical scientist,

852
00:45:13,820 --> 00:45:17,483
some speculate inspiring
the figure of Frankenstein.

853
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:19,860
They provided the money

854
00:45:19,860 --> 00:45:21,553
because she didn't have
access to the money herself.

855
00:45:21,553 --> 00:45:23,070
- [Hannah] But she was
quite a wealthy woman,

856
00:45:23,070 --> 00:45:23,907
there, wasn't she?

857
00:45:23,907 --> 00:45:26,150
- She wasn't a wealthy woman in the sense

858
00:45:26,150 --> 00:45:29,070
that she didn't have
control over her own money.

859
00:45:29,070 --> 00:45:31,650
Her mother had arranged
that she didn't get

860
00:45:31,650 --> 00:45:34,043
her hands basically on the family fortune.

861
00:45:34,980 --> 00:45:37,680
- [Hannah] The success
of the analytical engine

862
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:38,990
might have been resting

863
00:45:38,990 --> 00:45:41,053
on the results of these horse races.

864
00:45:43,010 --> 00:45:44,535
- [Ben] Go on, Christopher Marlowe!

865
00:45:44,535 --> 00:45:48,535
- He's so chilled out (laughs).

866
00:45:50,540 --> 00:45:52,397
- Yes, you can have it all!

867
00:45:52,397 --> 00:45:54,843
- You can have my eight pounds 64.

868
00:45:54,843 --> 00:45:57,230
- Eight pounds, 64, made a profit of--

869
00:45:57,230 --> 00:45:59,297
- [Both] Three pounds, 64.

870
00:45:59,297 --> 00:46:00,130
- Okay, yeah.

871
00:46:00,130 --> 00:46:02,424
- [Ben] That was a risk worth taking.

872
00:46:02,424 --> 00:46:04,857
- [Announcer] On the
official time unbelievable

873
00:46:04,857 --> 00:46:05,857
students 11.

874
00:46:07,379 --> 00:46:11,942
Point 060 seconds, two
minutes, 11.06 seconds.

875
00:46:11,942 --> 00:46:15,350
- Okay, go and pick up the
winnings, the vast winnings.

876
00:46:15,350 --> 00:46:17,103
- All three pounds, 64 of it.

877
00:46:19,603 --> 00:46:21,523
Can I have my winnings, please?

878
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:24,130
- Five.
- Thank you.

879
00:46:25,590 --> 00:46:26,423
It's the big bucks.

880
00:46:26,423 --> 00:46:27,809
- [Ben] It's the big bucks.

881
00:46:27,809 --> 00:46:28,644
What a win.

882
00:46:28,644 --> 00:46:29,977
- There's a bonus there, look,

883
00:46:29,977 --> 00:46:31,101
because I haven't got any silver.

884
00:46:31,101 --> 00:46:32,530
- [Hannah] Aw, you're too kind to me.

885
00:46:32,530 --> 00:46:33,363
- Well done, thank you very much.

886
00:46:33,363 --> 00:46:35,330
- Thank you very much.
We got a bit lucky there.

887
00:46:35,330 --> 00:46:38,180
- Yeah, we've even got
some extra nine pounds.

888
00:46:38,180 --> 00:46:39,013
- Yeah.

889
00:46:39,013 --> 00:46:40,030
But how did Ada do?

890
00:46:40,030 --> 00:46:41,630
- Ada did very badly indeed.

891
00:46:41,630 --> 00:46:45,230
She had this series of
bets that she put on

892
00:46:45,230 --> 00:46:49,600
in the spring season of
1851, right here on that turf

893
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:51,180
and it went very, very wrong.

894
00:46:51,180 --> 00:46:54,610
It resulted in her owing 3200 pounds.

895
00:46:54,610 --> 00:46:56,820
- Which in the 1850s is
a lot of money, isn't it?

896
00:46:56,820 --> 00:46:57,860
- [Ben] Yeah, a lot of money.

897
00:46:57,860 --> 00:47:00,430
It's probably around
half a million pounds.

898
00:47:00,430 --> 00:47:02,470
- Especially to someone
who only had pocket money,

899
00:47:02,470 --> 00:47:03,460
really, to go on.

900
00:47:03,460 --> 00:47:06,360
- Yeah, she ended up
owing thousands of pounds

901
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:09,590
to some pretty dodgy
characters, some of whom were,

902
00:47:09,590 --> 00:47:11,950
you know, trying to
extort money out of her

903
00:47:11,950 --> 00:47:14,810
by suggesting that they were
revealing what she'd done

904
00:47:14,810 --> 00:47:18,190
with her gambling and so
on, who had to be paid off.

905
00:47:18,190 --> 00:47:20,420
It got very sticky for her by that stage,

906
00:47:20,420 --> 00:47:22,840
but she seemed to raise some
of her own contributions

907
00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:26,830
to this by pawning the family's
jewels for up to 800 quid.

908
00:47:26,830 --> 00:47:30,700
- So then, do you think that
Ada had just lost the system?

909
00:47:30,700 --> 00:47:32,640
Do you think that she'd allowed herself

910
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:35,390
to be carried away with
the emotion of the event?

911
00:47:35,390 --> 00:47:36,223
- Well, I think, yes,

912
00:47:36,223 --> 00:47:38,260
it was that sort of perilous combination

913
00:47:38,260 --> 00:47:42,830
of mathematics and
recklessness, of risk and maths,

914
00:47:42,830 --> 00:47:45,740
the hope that she could use
sort of the rational methods

915
00:47:45,740 --> 00:47:48,524
that she'd learned through her mathematics

916
00:47:48,524 --> 00:47:50,930
in this kind of risky environment

917
00:47:50,930 --> 00:47:54,303
and it came off very badly for her.

918
00:47:54,303 --> 00:47:57,100
(somber music)

919
00:47:57,100 --> 00:48:00,230
- Ada's syndicate had trusted
in her mathematical prowess

920
00:48:01,463 --> 00:48:03,680
but they hadn't counted on the emergence

921
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:06,293
of an old Byron family vice,

922
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:10,924
a love of taking risks.

923
00:48:10,924 --> 00:48:13,841
(woman vocalizing)

924
00:48:20,348 --> 00:48:23,100
Her demise was swift.

925
00:48:23,100 --> 00:48:27,533
She'd worked hard all her
life, a woman in a man's world.

926
00:48:28,620 --> 00:48:31,920
Now, just 10 years after
writing her manifesto

927
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:36,757
for a computer revolution,
her dream was slipping away.

928
00:48:36,757 --> 00:48:40,590
(singing in foreign language)

929
00:48:45,677 --> 00:48:49,967
"My kingdom is not to be a
temporal one, thank heavens.

930
00:48:49,967 --> 00:48:52,627
"Labor is its own reward.

931
00:48:52,627 --> 00:48:54,397
"And it is perhaps well for the world

932
00:48:54,397 --> 00:48:56,267
"that my line and ambition

933
00:48:56,267 --> 00:48:58,507
"is over the spiritual

934
00:48:58,507 --> 00:49:02,617
"and not that I've taken it
into my head or lived in times

935
00:49:02,617 --> 00:49:06,107
"and circumstances calculated
to put it into my head

936
00:49:06,107 --> 00:49:09,207
"to deal with the sword,
poison and intrigue

937
00:49:09,207 --> 00:49:11,373
"in the place of X, Y and Z.

938
00:49:14,184 --> 00:49:16,557
"That brain of mine is
something more than mortal,

939
00:49:16,557 --> 00:49:18,267
"as time will show.

940
00:49:18,267 --> 00:49:20,277
"The devil's in it if I've not sucked out

941
00:49:20,277 --> 00:49:23,407
"some of the lifeblood from
the mysteries of this universe.

942
00:49:23,407 --> 00:49:27,787
"No one knows what almost awful
energy lies yet undeveloped

943
00:49:27,787 --> 00:49:30,377
"in that wiry little system of mine.

944
00:49:30,377 --> 00:49:34,837
"I say awful because you
can imagine what it might be

945
00:49:34,837 --> 00:49:37,347
"under different circumstances.

946
00:49:37,347 --> 00:49:39,423
"Your fairy forever, AAL."

947
00:49:41,142 --> 00:49:44,975
(singing in foreign language)

948
00:49:45,882 --> 00:49:50,070
Ada remained supremely
confident of her ability.

949
00:49:50,070 --> 00:49:55,070
However, the one thing Lady
Lovelace lacked was time.

950
00:49:55,318 --> 00:49:58,068
(bird squawking)

951
00:50:01,736 --> 00:50:04,236
In 1852, Ada fell gravely ill.

952
00:50:07,010 --> 00:50:11,353
She took to her bed in this very room.

953
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:19,080
As she lay dying, painfully and slowly,

954
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:20,690
from what we now know was

955
00:50:20,690 --> 00:50:23,680
almost certainly a cancer of the womb,

956
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:27,910
she confessed to her mother
about her gambling debts.

957
00:50:27,910 --> 00:50:29,760
Now, when she finally did die,

958
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:33,410
Ada was just 36 years old,

959
00:50:33,410 --> 00:50:37,393
exactly the same age her
father had been at his death.

960
00:50:38,445 --> 00:50:41,028
(gentle music)

961
00:50:44,650 --> 00:50:47,610
Her life had been full of regret.

962
00:50:47,610 --> 00:50:49,370
Her determination to rise

963
00:50:49,370 --> 00:50:53,453
from the shadows of her father
had seemingly come to little.

964
00:50:55,592 --> 00:51:00,050
Her extraordinary manifesto
was largely forgotten.

965
00:51:00,050 --> 00:51:02,853
Even Babbage rarely talked about it.

966
00:51:03,710 --> 00:51:06,163
History was shutting her out.

967
00:51:07,302 --> 00:51:09,885
(gentle music)

968
00:51:11,180 --> 00:51:14,360
There's one final twist in Ada's story

969
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:17,000
which I think is particularly telling,

970
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:19,303
her last wish before she died.

971
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:28,840
Against her mother's will,

972
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:33,362
she insisted on being taken
miles away from her home.

973
00:51:33,362 --> 00:51:35,945
(gentle music)

974
00:51:41,240 --> 00:51:45,220
Her wish was to be buried in this tomb

975
00:51:45,220 --> 00:51:48,600
alongside the man she hadn't
seen since she was a baby,

976
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:51,030
her father, Lord Byron.

977
00:51:51,030 --> 00:51:54,230
Cheating husband, poetical genius

978
00:51:54,230 --> 00:51:57,180
and supporter of the Luddites.

979
00:51:57,180 --> 00:52:00,110
Now, no one really knows
why she made this decision.

980
00:52:00,110 --> 00:52:03,050
Perhaps she was trying
to exert some control

981
00:52:03,050 --> 00:52:05,640
in death that she lacked in life.

982
00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:09,890
Perhaps it was a final
attempt at a lasting legacy.

983
00:52:09,890 --> 00:52:12,610
But to my mind at least, Ada,

984
00:52:12,610 --> 00:52:14,650
the daughter of art and science,

985
00:52:14,650 --> 00:52:17,190
who struggled so much with the coldness

986
00:52:17,190 --> 00:52:21,713
of her mother in life, longed
for the warmth of her father.

987
00:52:23,847 --> 00:52:28,157
"Is thy face like thy
mother's, my fair child.

988
00:52:28,157 --> 00:52:31,767
"Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart?

989
00:52:31,767 --> 00:52:35,977
"When last I saw thy young
blue eyes they smiled.

990
00:52:35,977 --> 00:52:37,967
"And then we parted.

991
00:52:37,967 --> 00:52:40,177
"Not as now we part.

992
00:52:40,177 --> 00:52:41,487
"But with a hope."

993
00:52:44,210 --> 00:52:47,150
Her coffin, adorned with a crown,

994
00:52:47,150 --> 00:52:50,080
was laid beside Lord Byron.

995
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:53,200
Ada Lovelace returned to the shadow

996
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:55,600
of her more famous father,

997
00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:58,663
her contribution to science buried.

998
00:53:01,746 --> 00:53:05,246
(airplane engine roaring)

999
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:10,463
It took over a century for
her genius to be resurrected.

1000
00:53:13,330 --> 00:53:17,973
It was the height of World War
II, a time of national peril.

1001
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:22,930
Here at Bletchley Park,
amidst great secrecy,

1002
00:53:22,930 --> 00:53:25,330
a team of scientists were experimenting

1003
00:53:25,330 --> 00:53:27,253
with thinking machines.

1004
00:53:31,720 --> 00:53:34,630
One key pioneer took a keen interest

1005
00:53:34,630 --> 00:53:37,350
in Ada's ideas of computer science,

1006
00:53:37,350 --> 00:53:41,020
Alan Turing, the brains
behind this machine.

1007
00:53:41,020 --> 00:53:43,150
Now, it had taken over a century,

1008
00:53:43,150 --> 00:53:45,540
but this was finally an example

1009
00:53:45,540 --> 00:53:47,763
of mechanized thought in action.

1010
00:53:50,130 --> 00:53:53,050
Turing was fascinated by
how a machine could be made

1011
00:53:53,050 --> 00:53:57,190
to understand and act upon instructions,

1012
00:53:57,190 --> 00:54:01,239
just as Ada had been 100 years earlier.

1013
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:04,239
(machines whirring)

1014
00:54:07,550 --> 00:54:11,610
He designed this particular
machine, code named the Bombe,

1015
00:54:11,610 --> 00:54:14,690
and instructed it to
run through combinations

1016
00:54:14,690 --> 00:54:16,703
and look for patterns in data.

1017
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:22,770
It would prove vital in
cracking encrypted messages

1018
00:54:22,770 --> 00:54:24,843
of Hitler's armed forces.

1019
00:54:28,810 --> 00:54:32,610
Turing had had the same idea as Ada,

1020
00:54:32,610 --> 00:54:34,600
the ability to interchange numbers

1021
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:37,771
and symbols in a computerized world.

1022
00:54:37,771 --> 00:54:40,510
(gentle music)
(machines whirring)

1023
00:54:40,510 --> 00:54:41,800
In many ways,

1024
00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:46,623
Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace
were kindred spirits.

1025
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:51,890
Both saw further than any of their peers

1026
00:54:51,890 --> 00:54:55,153
as to the true versatility of computers.

1027
00:54:56,061 --> 00:54:58,644
(gentle music)

1028
00:55:02,210 --> 00:55:06,040
Turing did his early work
without having seen Ada's notes,

1029
00:55:06,040 --> 00:55:09,110
but he came across them in the 1940s.

1030
00:55:09,110 --> 00:55:12,160
Now, that must have
been an amazing moment,

1031
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:13,640
almost like a dialogue

1032
00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:17,430
between two like minded
people across history.

1033
00:55:17,430 --> 00:55:19,980
Now, Turing wrote about Ada's work

1034
00:55:19,980 --> 00:55:23,330
and her far reaching ideas
and it's thanks to him

1035
00:55:23,330 --> 00:55:27,332
that she's become known
as a pioneer of computers.

1036
00:55:27,332 --> 00:55:30,584
(gentle music)

1037
00:55:30,584 --> 00:55:33,501
(pages fluttering)

1038
00:55:35,640 --> 00:55:39,307
So how should we remember
Lady Ada Lovelace?

1039
00:55:41,720 --> 00:55:44,140
- This was somebody with enormous talent,

1040
00:55:44,140 --> 00:55:46,540
in an extraordinary
environment, hugely privileged,

1041
00:55:46,540 --> 00:55:49,800
with a background that made
her a celebrity from birth,

1042
00:55:49,800 --> 00:55:50,910
struggling for balance.

1043
00:55:50,910 --> 00:55:52,750
How could she make meaning of her life?

1044
00:55:52,750 --> 00:55:55,280
And the meaning she
sought was to be a savant,

1045
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:57,310
to be somebody who could
interpret the world.

1046
00:55:57,310 --> 00:55:58,250
- And I suppose in that sense

1047
00:55:58,250 --> 00:56:01,620
her accomplishments are undeniable, right?

1048
00:56:01,620 --> 00:56:02,620
- Yes, yes.

1049
00:56:02,620 --> 00:56:04,990
She wrote about the
engine, what it signified

1050
00:56:04,990 --> 00:56:07,400
and what it meant in ways
that Babbage never did.

1051
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:09,810
In all of his 11 volumes
of published writings,

1052
00:56:09,810 --> 00:56:12,420
nowhere does he write
about the aspirations

1053
00:56:12,420 --> 00:56:15,100
and potential of computing in
the way that Lovelace does.

1054
00:56:15,100 --> 00:56:17,690
And this is not a suggestive hint,

1055
00:56:17,690 --> 00:56:20,630
this isn't a backwards
projection from our own age

1056
00:56:20,630 --> 00:56:22,510
onto the blank canvas of the past,

1057
00:56:22,510 --> 00:56:25,527
this is Lovelace thumping
the table, saying,

1058
00:56:25,527 --> 00:56:27,975
"This is what is significant
about this machine."

1059
00:56:27,975 --> 00:56:30,558
(gentle music)

1060
00:56:31,860 --> 00:56:34,870
- The modern world now
teems with computers.

1061
00:56:34,870 --> 00:56:39,563
They're everywhere, often hidden
as miniaturized microchips.

1062
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:44,220
If we don't take them totally for granted,

1063
00:56:44,220 --> 00:56:45,830
we certainly aren't surprised

1064
00:56:45,830 --> 00:56:49,653
that they can do so much more
than simple number crunching.

1065
00:56:50,930 --> 00:56:54,550
Ada had seen this, the
extraordinary flexibility

1066
00:56:54,550 --> 00:56:57,823
of computers, nearly 200 years ago.

1067
00:57:00,468 --> 00:57:01,830
It would have been quite something,

1068
00:57:01,830 --> 00:57:06,420
a Victorian information
age with hardware driven

1069
00:57:06,420 --> 00:57:09,510
by steam and software with the power

1070
00:57:09,510 --> 00:57:14,510
to unpick the fabric of reality,
dreamt up by Ada Lovelace.

1071
00:57:19,099 --> 00:57:24,099
(gentle music)
(pages fluttering)