The Lovelace-De Morgan mathematical correspondence: a critical re-appraisal (Q2401269)

Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, is known as a pioneer of computer science, sometimes called the first computer programmer. In fact, in 1843, she published a treatise on the Analytical Engine, a machine that was proposed by Charles Babbage and that is seen as the `first computer' (although it has never been built). This treatise consists of a translation of Luigi Menabrea's ``Notions sur la machine analytique de M. Charles Babbage'' and of several appendices, among them a description of how to compute Bernoulli numbers using the Analytical Engine. There exist many publications about Lovelace's life and work. Many of them raise the question whether Lovelace, although not formally educated in mathematics, really had the mathematical knowledge and ability to write the mathematical parts of the 1843 paper. The authors of the present article want to answer this question, using the mathematical correspondence between Lovelace and Augustus De Morgan. This correspondence was conducted in 1840--41; the authors corrected the ordering of the letters and analysed their contents thoroughly, thus giving new insight into Lovelace's mathematical development. The article starts with a quotation from a letter by De Morgan to Lovelace's mother, Lady Byron, from 1844. Among other things, De Morgan wrote: ``Had any young [male] beginner, about to go to Cambridge, shewn the same power[s], I should have prophesied \dots that they would have certainly made him an original mathematical investigator, perhaps of first rate eminence''. From their analysis of the Lovelace-De Morgan correspondence, the authors come to the conclusion that during that period, Lovelace acquired a good knowledge of fundamental topics of mathematics and the ability to independently study new mathematical ideas. Moreover, they write: ``\dots one might speculate that she may have reached research-level ability in a further one or two years''.