Ada Lovelace — The First Computer Programmer

8 minute lives · Aug 3, 2026 · 8m

Hi there, and welcome to 8 Minute Lives. In 1843, a scientific journal in London published a translated article about a machine that didn't exist. The machine was the Analytical Engine, a mechanical computer designed by Charles Babbage, and it would never be built in his lifetime. But appended to the translation were seven notes, nearly three times longer than the article itself, signed only with the initials A.A.L. Buried in the final note was a step-by-step procedure for making the machine calculate a famously tricky sequence called the Bernoulli numbers. Many people today call that table…