June 5 is precisely the day when a formidable Italian innovation would have been good for us. Even a less striking thing. Instead it becomes an opportunity to tell an encounter that for those who love the world of computers tastes like a fairy tale. The Computer History Museum website claims that the first meeting between Lovelace and Babbage took place on June 5, 1833. Who were they? Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, considered one of the first programmers, and therefore a pioneer of computer science; and Charles Babbage, inventor of the “differential machine,” a huge mechanical calculator that some say could have become the first computer if only he had finished it.
On the point of the meeting there are not many sources but some do. And in short, on June 5, 1833, the two met in London on the occasion of the demonstration of Babbage’s differential machine. Ada was 18, Charles the age of his mother. According to some stories, Ada was among the few present to understand the functioning and potential of that proto-computer. The differential machine project was abandoned that same year but Ada Lovelace continued to study that strange machine and at one point translated into French the essay written on the subject by an Italian scientist, Luigi Menabrea, who went down in history as the only engineer to be became prime minister (to be three times). Menabrea’s essay with the notes of the translator, Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace, is still online where it can be seen that the notes are three times longer (and much more important, say the mathematicians) than the essay itself. Ada Lovelace is a legendary figure: March 24 in the world is celebrated to highlight the contribution of women to science. A few years ago someone wrote a book imagining that Babbage had instead finished the construction of his machine: the amazing adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, tells how the world would have been if there had been computers already in the 19th century.
We are building an almanac of Italian innovation, trying every day to tell a date: if you want to propose an important fact to be included in this series, write to me at [email protected]
.