Notes on the Analytical Engine

 

When Babbage began devising a new project, the “Analytical Engine”—sketched out as a hulking machine with thousands of cogwheels that could perform more functions with greater accuracy—Lovelace served as its key interpreter. On a trip to Turin to promote his work, which required considerable financial support, Babbage met a mathematician named Luigi Federico Menabrea, who agreed to write a paper on the machine. It was published in a Swiss academic journal in October, 1842, at about eight thousand words.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     Lovelace translated it from the French, and added her own notes. Her version came in at twenty thousand words. “The notes of the Countess of Lovelace extend to about three times the length of the original memoir,” Babbage wrote later. “Their author has entered fully into almost all the very difficult and abstract questions connected with the subject.”

 

     Her translation, along with her notes, was published in 1843, and represent her greatest contribution to computer science: she described with clarity how Babbage’s device would work, as well as correcting mistakes of his, and adding her own ideas, what is commonly refered to now as the first computer algorith.