Calculating Ada

1. Make It Digital 2015

BBC 4 Series 1 Episode 1
First broadcast 17th September 2015, 21:00
Duration: 01:00:08
Ada Lovelace was a most unlikely computer pioneer. In this film, Dr Hannah Fry tells the story of Ada's remarkable life. Born in the early 19th century Ada was a countess of the realm, a scandalous socialite and an 'enchantress of numbers'. The film is an enthralling tale of how a life infused with brilliance, but blighted by illness and gambling addiction, helped give rise to the modern era of computing. Hannah traces Ada's unlikely union with the father of computers, Charles Babbage. Babbage designed the world's first steam-powered computers - most famously the analytical engine - but it was Ada who realised the full potential of these new machines. In this film, Dr Hannah Fry tells the story of Ada's remarkable life. The film is an enthralling tale of how a life infused with brilliance helped give rise to the modern era of computing. Hannah traces Ada's unlikely union with the father of computers, Charles Babbage. It was only with the advent of modern computing that Ada's understanding of their flexibility and power (that they could be far more than mere number crunchers) was recognised as truly visionary.

Clips from this programme

Intro and opening - The True Pioneer of the Computer Age, forged from brass and powered by steam- A Victorian Computer Age: Lady Ada Lovelace

Duration: 02:00
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The foresight of that Victorian Lady, Ada Lovelace: Home Horsley Towers, Surrey, acquaintances: Dickens, Faraday and Charles Babbage. Taylor's scientific memoirs- A visionary document from 1843 - Logic and the creative arts meet - The scandalous Lord Byron, Ada's father. Ada's mother, Annabella, was mathematical and conformist

Duration: 05:14
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Ada Lovelace studying; Her tutors and influences (Augustus De Morgan). Design of a mechanical bird. Age 17 Ada was invited to Charles Babbage's party where he revealed The Difference Engine

Duration: 02:45
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The Original Babbage Difference Engine (an incredibly advanced calculator) at The London Science Museum (Curator- Tilly Blyth)

Duration: 07:23
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The Original Babbage Difference Engine: A better idea: Babbage's plans to build the machine around Brunel, Faraday's, Wheatstone, Darwin inventiveness, then Babbage shelved the idea - A better idea (Doron Swade- Royal Holloway University of London)

Duration: 02:17
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Babbage's Analytical Engine: Hardware: Defining Ada's legacy - Huge, to be driven by steam and a programmable Computer including The Conditional Arm for 'branching' (Doron Swade- Royal Holloway University of London)

Duration: 05:10
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Babbage's Analytical Engine: Software: Ada realises the capabilities of this machine with Software - Ada Lovelace's genius

Duration: 06:58
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The Jacquard Loom (Paradise Mill Macclesfield) - Control by a series of punched cards, the first binary machine code

Duration: 04:01
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Ada Lovelace: Sees the potential from her mathematical upbringing, alongside marriage and children! Ada relationship with Babbage - Promoting Babbage's Engine. Ada adds her own thoughts on the computational possibilities of such a machine, including her own Program for the Engine, the first!

Duration: 06:54
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Mathematicians see the mathematical patterns in the natural world

Duration: 01:25
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Babbage's Analytical Engine: Ada Lovelace sees computing not just for numbers but as a tool for investigating unseen worlds - Creativity and Science, a new Age of Discovery? What went wrong? Government funding (Sir Robert Peel) - Ada has a plan, though.

Duration: 05:39
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Babbage turns his back on Ada Lovelace (Ada began gambling and losing - Epsom Downs Racecourse (Benjamin Woolley-Biographer)) - 'Women in Victorian society were not seen as equals'. The dream was slipping away

Duration: 08:25
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Ada Lovelace writes in 1843, supremely confident of her ability but falling ill in 1852, dying at the age 36. History shut her out. Her last wish-To be buried alongside her father, supporter of the Luddites, Ada: daughter of Art and Science

Duration: 04:18
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Bletchley Park - A century later (WWII) her genius was resurrected. The thinking machines, Alan Turing with mechanised thought a hundred years later with the Bombe; kindred spirits: Turing's writing about Ada Lovelace allowed her to be recognised as a pioneer of Computing (Doron Swade- Royal Holloway University of London). We should never take computers for granted. ADA code was adopted by UK Air Traffic Control

Duration: 04:43
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The Open University Pack for Digital Technology - Past and Present

Duration: 00:19

End Titles

Duration: 00:31

Make It Digital: Trails

Duration: 01:02