Mathematical Winters: Ada Lovelace, 200 Years On

Editor's Blog





Photo credit:

Ada Lovelace circa 1842, daguerreotype by Antoine Claudet. Reproduced by permission of G C Bond

Christmas 1840, cold and crisp. The fashionable and wealthy Lovelace family are learning to skate, the four year-old Byron (junior, the grandson of Lord Byron) pushing a chair along the ice to keep his balance. Driven inside by the cold, his mother retires to her study and her lessons in advanced calculus. She writes to her tutor: “This is very mathematical weather. When one cannot exercise one’s muscles out of doors, one is peculiarly inclined to exercise one’s brains in-doors.” Then she plunges into a detailed discussion of the convergence of series.