This is Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate daughter of the poet Lord Byron:
As you can see, she was quite a pretty thing, very elegant and well turned-out:
Ada Lovelace also wrote the world’s first computer program, a series of calculations for a then-hypothetical machine of Charles Babbage’s imagination, the “Analytical Engine.” Her program was never run on this machine and she died in her mid-thirties of uterine cancer, but her brilliant mathematical mind (and the contributions of women to science and mathematics) is celebrated annually on March 24th on Ada Lovelace Day. Her imagine also apparently appears on the Microsoft product authenticity hologram stickers. Being pretty didn’t keep her from doing math. Neither did being bound in corsets and yards of fabric.
Since you all know I don’t think highly of perpetuating that ridiculous cultural myth that girls are (or should be) bad at math, I’d like to invite you to check out this beautiful Heroine: Ada Lovelace tee from ThinkGeek (a company that thinks smart girls rock). Due to the high number of sales of this shirt in its first month available, ThinkGeek is contributing to The Girl Effect, an organization to give girls a chance to pursue the educations they desperately need. Obviously, ThinkGeek and I aren’t the only ones who think Mathy Girls ought to be celebrated.
Don’t make your daughters’ minds into a joke. Don’t slap your daughters with a degrading stereotype and try to pretend it’s funny or “ironic.” Celebrate your mathy girl, your budding scientist, your future Ada Lovelace. Let her know that beauty and brains aren’t mutually exclusive, and that a brilliant mind is beautiful.
AWESOME! Going to share this with Lydia. She’ll love it.
I love that shirt. I also love that site. Only down side I wish they had this design or the Marie Curie shirt in kids sizes.
I love ThinkGeek! We definitely have a science geek in the house (she gets all giddy for the chance to watch Carl Sagan). She’s always been very good at math, but some time last year she developed a math phobia, and I’m sure it’s a result of hearing other kids say things they heard their older siblings say, and so on and so on. It’s part of why we’re keeping her home this year. Still it’s very disturbing to think about all those girls left in the classrooms who are still going to be math and science phobic.
My husband’s friend Gary, who is a computer geek, named his dogs Ada and Java.
That video at The Girl Effect had tears streaming down my face. Thanks for the link.
Thanks for the great post. I just had my daughter read it, and she was excited to learn about Ada Lovelace. Apparently there is a historical costume in the game Little Big Planet of Ada Lovelace, and now she knows who she is. We are off to Think Geek to see if we can get her the t-shirt!
How cool! How have I never in my life heard of this woman? This is part of why we homeschool, to correct that sort of thing.
I’m so happy to have discovered your blog!
Hey, back when I was a true computer geek, I bought myself t-shirts from ThinkGeek!
I love, love ThinkGeek. Seriously, we have so much stuff from them that it’s not even funny.