Ada's Algorithm

by James Essinger

  The ‘kind and sympathetic scientific men’ were wrong and their decision may be described as one of the greatest blunders in the history of science – with the benefit of hindsight. It would take a hundred years for scientists to understand what Ada had grasped when scientists finally resumed the leap forward that could have been made in the 1840s. Ironically, Ada’s Notes would play a key role in the rehabilitation of Babbage’s reputation.

  The (cultural) myopia of the kind men was mirrored by the somewhat condescending tone in which Ada’s tutor Augustus de Morgan had judged her Notes on Babbage’s machine. Lady Byron had sent some of Ada’s early drafts to him in 1841:

  The tract about Babbage’s machine is a pretty thing enough, but I could I think produce a series of extracts, out of Lady Lovelace’s first queries upon new subjects, which would make a mathematician see that it was no criterion of what might be expected from her.

  As things turned out, Babbage had left behind enough plans and drawings for a complete, working version of one of his machines to be constructed by an epoch that was better equipped to understand his vision. All he had really needed was access to an effective and efficient precision engineering industry: not because the technology of his own time was not up to the job of producing components to the requisite tolerances – it was – but because Babbage required a reliable source of thousands of identical cogwheels to be supplied relatively promptly, and at a reasonable cost, and the industry of his own day could not offer him this.

  If Babbage had let Ada manage his affairs, as she so much wished to do, everything he had hoped to achieve might have been achieved. She would have been better suited to direct his engineers and even his financial affairs with greater charm, clarity and effectiveness, getting the best value for money from those who helped him make his cogwheels and his other spare parts.

  As for Ada’s vision of a machine that could process and memorise calculations, algebraic patterns and even all types of symbolic relationships as adeptly as the Jacquard loom could weave silk, that was a dream just waiting to come true.

  She had seen the computer age clearly ahead. She just was never allowed to act on what she saw.

  The dream began to start coming true in 1881, when a young engineer, William J. Hammer, who was working in Thomas Edison’s laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, made an accidental discovery that turned out to be of great importance. He discovered an inexplicable current in an evacuated vacuum tube that turned out to lead to the discovery of electrons.

  The modern computer evolved from an electromagnetic device, the Harvard Mark 1, sponsored by IBM, which was built and first operated in 1944. It is arguable that there is a link between the Jacquard loom and this machine, because IBM, formerly International Business Machines, was a direct descendant of a company founded by a German-born inventor, Herman Hollerith, which pioneered the use of ‘tabulators’ that processed punched cards. The idea for these tabulators was probably inspired by the Jacquard loom.

  One of the strangest things about Babbage’s work is that there is no direct line of descent between the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine and the modern computer. When Howard Aiken, the brains behind the Harvard Mark 1, announced its completion to an astonished world at a press conference in 1944, he paid a fulsome tribute to Babbage and famously said: “If Babbage had lived seventy-five years later, I would have been out of a job.”

  However, at that point in the history of science, Babbage was a close to forgotten figure, only remembered by a few computer pioneers.

  Alan Turing, the British mathematician and code-breaker who in the 1940s and 1950s laid many of the intellectual foundations necessary for the invention of the modern computer, was aware of Ada’s writings.

  Turing discussed the assertion that computers are incapable of originality. He called this the ‘Lovelace objection,’ because, according to Ada, machines are incapable of independent learning. We have already seen that Ada wrote the following:

  The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with.

  Turing suggested that Ada’s comment can be reduced to the assertion that computers ‘can never take us by surprise.’ Turing said, however, that on the contrary, computers could still surprise humans, in particular where the consequences of different facts are not immediately recognizable. Turing also suggested that Ada was hampered by the context from which she wrote, and that in truth the way the brain stores and processes information would be quite similar to that of a computer.

  Babbage’s work came under fresh scrutiny in the 1970s, partly as a result of the devoted research of the late Dr Allan Bromley. Any book that looks at Babbage’s work and what the modern world has made of it owes a debt to Dr Bromley.

  The successful building, in 1991, of a full-size working version of the Difference Engine – the version Babbage himself called Difference Engine number 2 – is unquestionably one of the most wonderful stories in the history of science. The Cogwheel Brain, by Doron Swade, who master-minded and led the project to build the machine – and nine years later, a no less thrilling project to build the printer – is a unique source of information about Babbage’s life and the modern realisation of Babbage’s dreams.

  Babbage’s increased fame has led to Ada’s fame increasing too. Ada’s fame is, as we’ve seen, of a different order. It is no exaggeration to say that she understood where Babbage’s work would lead better than he ever did.

  Afterword

  While Bifrons, in Patrixbourne near Canterbury, has now been demolished, the little bridge is still here. It is readily visible from the road between Patrixbourne and Bridge, and is less than a hundred yards from the road.

  It was there, too, at the time Ada spent her often lonely year at Bifrons in 1828. I am sure she often wandered down to the bridge from the house, and perhaps she glanced with some envy at village children playing in the adjacent field beyond the road and wondered why she couldn’t have more friends. I think she must have stood on the bridge and watched the Nailbourne flow under her. She might have glanced above her and seen birds flying and thought, yet again, how one day she planned to find a way of flying herself.

  Today, if you stand on that bridge and look skywards, you will see the occasional jet airliner pass by on the flight path towards Eastern Europe or back from there towards London. Ada never saw those planes flying, but her spirit did.

  We may, too, think of the following, from the final lines of the third canto of Childe Harolde, in which Byron addresses his daughter.

  Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,

  I know that thou wilt love me; though my name

  Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught

  With desolation, and a broken claim:

  Though the grave closed between us, – ’t were the same,

  I know that thou wilt love me; though to drain

  My blood from out thy being were an aim,

  And an attainment, – all would be in vain, –

  Still thou would’st love me, still that more than life retain.

  Sources

  I wish especially to acknowledge one particular source, Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers by Betty Alexandra Toole. Her book contains all Ada’s letters to Babbage, as well as many other letters between Ada and a wide range of people, including Lady Byron. The book also contains Babbage’s letter from Ada to Babbage in which he mentions the phrase ‘Enchantress of Number.’

  In the order in which they appear in the book, the following sources were used:

  The site of Bifrons house is near Patrixbourne village and is accessible via a path close by the mini-roundabout just outside Patrixbourne.

  Lovelace–Byron Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, with kind permission of Lord Lytton.

 
The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds, edited by Phyllis Grosskurth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, reprint March 1986).

  The Woeful Victorian, a biography of John Addington Symonds by Phyllis Grosskurth (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964).

  Annabella’s letter to Byron on Sunday, August 22, 1813, which rekindled their relationship is in the Lovelace–Byron Papers. It is almost completely legible.

  Venetia by Benjamin Disraeli (Henry Colburn: 1837).

  J. J. O’Connor and E. F. Robertson’s article on Mary Somerville: www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Somerville.html.

  Woronzow Greig’s short and often illegible biography of Ada is in the Lovelace–Byron Papers.

  Jacquard’s Web by James Essinger (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2004). My main source for the early history of Jacquard’s life are papers published in the Bulletin Municipal Officiel of Lyons between 1998 and 1999.

  A History of Textiles by Kax Wilson (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979).

  The Fontana History of Technology by Donald Cardwell (London: Fontana Press, 1994).

  On the subject of Babbage’s personal life, there is an intriguing letter to him from a Reverend Lunn in the British Library Additional (Add.) MSS 37,185, folio 310. This suggests that Babbage had asked Lunn to enquire about a potentially suitable candidate for a wife.

  Passage from the Life of a Philosopher by Charles Babbage and the Babbage archive, held by the British Library.

  John Herschel’s letter to Babbage urging the abandonment of formality in correspondence is in the library of the Royal Society, London, Volume 2 of the Herschel Papers, folio 8.

  The draft letter from Charles Babbage to Jean Arago is in the British Library, Additional Manuscripts No. 37,191, folios 287–89.

  The portrait of Jacquard which Babbage was finally able to obtain is on display in the Babbage exhibition in the Science Museum, London.

  Jean Arago’s letter explaining his problems with obtaining the Jacquard portrait for Babbage is in the British Library, Additional Manuscripts No. 37,191, folio 316.

  The evidence for when Babbage returned to Britain from Turin is inherent in a letter in Additional Manuscripts No. 39,191, folio 450. This is dated September 11, 1840. It was addressed to Babbage in London but redirected to an address in Ostend, where he seems to have been staying prior to coming back to Britain.

  As mentioned earlier in this book, the Sketch of the Analytical Engine, invented by Charles Babbage, Esq. Scientific Memoirs, III, pp. 666–731 is available at the following website: www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/sketch.html.

  Sir Robert Peel’s letter to the Earl of Haddington about the correct attitude to adopt to the financial requests of men of science is in the British Library, Additional Manuscripts No. 40,456, folio 98.

  Peel’s letter to Buckland, showing how the Prime Minister felt about Babbage, is in Additional Manuscripts No. 40,514, folio 223.

  Henry Goulburn’s letter to Babbage notifying him of the Government’s decision to stop funding the Difference Engine is in Additional Manuscripts V 37,192, folio 172–73, in the British Library.

  Babbage’s detailed account of his abortive meeting with Sir Robert Peel on Friday, November 11, 1842, is in Additional Manuscripts No. 37,192, folio 189, in the British Library.

  Although I do not mention this directly in the text, for details of a dinner party given by Dickens which Babbage and Lord and Lady Lovelace attended, see The Letters of Charles Dickens Vol. 5 1847–1849, p. 513, ed. Storey/Fielding (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).

  For Dickens’s letter to his brother-in-law, the architect and artist Henry Austin, about the bill for Tavistock Place, see The Letters of Charles Dickens Vol. 6, p. 556, ed. Storey/Tillotson and Burgis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

  Ada’s diagnosis by Dr West is in the Lovelace–Byron Papers.

  The account of Ada’s funeral appeared in the Nottinghamshire Guardian on Wednesday, December 8, 1852. It was found by Annelisa Christensen.

  A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator by Howard Aiken and Herman Hollerith (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946).

  Forgotten Giant of Information Processing by Geoffrey D. Austrian (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).

  Further Reading

  Aspray, William, ed. Computing Before Computers (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990).

  Babbage, Charles. On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (London: Charles Knight, 1832).

  ———. On the Principles and Development of the Calculator (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1961).

  ———. Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press; and Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 1994).

  ———. Science and Reform: Selected Works of Charles Babbage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

  Bromley, Allan. The Babbage Papers in the Science Museum (London: The Science Museum, 1991).

  Brown, Donald. Charles Babbage – The Man and His Machine (Totnes: The Totnes Museum Study Centre, 1992).

  Buxton, H. W. Memoir of the Life and Labours of the Late Charles Babbage Esq. F.R.S. (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press; and Los Angeles / San Francisco: Tomash Publishers, 1988).

  Byron, Lord. The Works of Lord Byron (Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 1994).

  Campbell-Kelly, Martin and William Aspray. Computer: A History of the Information Machine (New York: HarperCollins, 1986).

  Collier, Bruce. The Little Engines that Could’ve (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1990).

  Dickens, Charles. The Letters of Charles Dickens: 1820–1870 (2nd release).

  ———. Little Dorrit (London: Chapman & Hall, 1855).

  Eisler, Benita. Byron (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1999).

  Essinger, James. Jacquard’s Web (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004).

  Grosskurth, Phyllis. Byron, The Flawed Angel (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997).

  Hyman, Anthony. Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Computer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).

  King-Hele, D. G., ed. John Herschel, 1792–1871: A Bicentennial Commemoration (London: The Royal Society, 1992).

  Knowles, James Sheridan. Love: A Play in Five Acts (first U.S. edition) (Baltimore, MD: H. A. Turner, c. 1840).

  Lethbridge, Lucy. Ada Lovelace: Computer Wizard of Victorian England (London: Short Books, 2004).

  Maddox, Brenda. Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA (London: HarperCollins, 2002).

  Moore, Doris Langley. Ada, Countess of Lovelace: Byron’s Legitimate Daughter (London: John Murray, 1977).

  Moseley, Maboth. Irascible Genius: A Life of Charles Babbage, Inventor (London: Hutchinson, 1964).

  Snyder, Laura J. The Philosophical Breakfast Club (New York: Random House, 2011).

  Stein, Dorothy. Ada: A Life and Legacy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985).

  Swade, Doron. Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines (London: The Science Museum, 1991).

  ———. The Cogwheel Brain (London: Little, Brown and Company, 2000).

  Toole, Betty. Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers (Mill Valley, CA: Strawberry Press, 1992).

  Woolley, Benjamin. The Bride of Science (London: Macmillan, 1999).

  Acknowledgements

  My sincere thanks to Kirsten Reach, my editor at Melville House, and her team; to my copy editor Michele Bové; to my UK publisher, Martin Rynja of Gibson Square; and to my literary agent, Diane Banks. Diane is an agent and ally of the very highest calibre.

  My gratitude to Ada’s descendant, the Earl of Lytton, for granting me access to the Lovelace–Byron Collection in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and for permission to reproduce material from it. My thanks also to the Earl of Lytton’s literary executors, Laurence Pollinger Limited.

  Alexandra Toole’s superb book Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers (1992) has been an essential companion to me during the writing of Ada’s Algorithm, as have been my conversations with my friend Alexand
ra herself.

  My very sincere thanks to Laurence Green, Alexander Dembitz and Briony Kapoor for their support and friendship. My deep gratitude also to Helen Komatsu (formerly Helen Wylie), with whom I have had so many conversations about Ada and Babbage; to Russell Galen in New York for kindly editing the early sample material of this book; to Annelisa Christensen for her wonderfully ingenious and dedicated research and advice; and to Fiona Godfrey for being my amanuensis for this project and for her excellent editing and our many helpful discussions about Ada and Ada’s world. It was a great pleasure to work with Fiona on this book, often in her home only a few miles from the site of Bifrons house, where Ada spent time as a girl.

  Many thanks also to Dr Doron Swade MBE for his friendship and for his generosity with his time over several years, and to Ada enthusiast and expert Dr Betty Alexandra Toole for her help. My sincere gratitude, in addition, to Martin Campbell-Kelly.

  I would additionally like to express my gratitude to: my brother Rupert Essinger; Margaret Dowley MBE; Jackie Hammond; Andrew Greet IM; Nicole Roberts, Stephen Gillatt, Maurice Raraty; Meriel Connor; John Sullivan; Jonathan Smith and Sandy Paul of Trinity College, Cambridge; Joanna Corden and Keith Moore of the Royal Society in London; Colin Harris and his team at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and also to Mary Clapinson there; J. J. O’Connor and E. F. Robertson for their excellent work on Mary Somerville, from which I have drawn; the late Bruce Collier; Professor Anthony Hyman; and Richard Gill, Mike Kinder and Neil Roberts, who all taught me at Wyggeston Boys’ Grammar School in Leicester.

  My thanks also to Eddie Jephcott, Jacqueline Rifai, Alex Rifai, Annie Strahm and Sharon and Zoe Retter for acting so well in the read-through of Ada’s Thinking-Machine, my screenplay about Ada.