Ada Lovelace Day - Inaugural Post

   Based on the famous woodcut

Ada Lovelace Day is as good a time as any to start.

In some sense, it's perfect because aspects of it are disputed: it changes dates periodically (from March 24 to October 16), it is perceived by some as feminist historical revisionism (incorrectly), and it irks people who chafe at the thought of gender-specific celebrations of achievement (they are unhappy people).

The point of this October 16 is to remember Ada Lovelace, first theoretical computer programmer, daughter of Mintgreen-fav Byron and less-fav Annabella Milbanke. With Ada as a symbol for belated recognition of female scientific contributions, blogs all over the place share stories of those women scientists and mathematicians that they admire, in hopes of inspiring girls to pursue those subjects of study. It is downright lovely.

But. Let us deviate slightly here from the expressed objective of ALD. I am not sufficiently versed in current or historical scientific contributions, be they by men, women, quiet bat people or child prodigies, to present them to other people with eyes or ears. However, when all the blogs from all over the place Google-Image pics of Ada to use for this celebration, they often choose one in particular that I cannot abide. It is this one:

Sometimes, you will see this version of it instead:

It straight-up hurt my feelings to upload those. Because it isn't Ada. Let me dwell on that for a moment: THESE ARE NOT PICTURES OF ADA LOVELACE. Please, let me know if I am wrong. I would be happy to be released from the lameness of fretting over who exactly is in an almost 200 year-old picture in my spare time. I want to not care about this anymore. But I don't think I am wrong. Here's why:

1) Ada was already 25 when portrait photography came to Britain. Richard Beard opened the first daguerreotype studio on top of the Royal Polytechnic Institution on March 23, 1841. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, "History of Photography") Ada was born on December 10, 1815.  The person in the photos above does not look 25. And she would have to be at least 25. This picture could have been taken at any point after 1841, as well. I would give her an absolute max of 20. Remember that people aged badly then. Life was harder. There was no sunscreen.

2) This girl looks too much like the rest of Ada and William King's children and not enough like other depictions of Ada. First, let's have a look at Ada from an 1836 (she's 20) painting by Margaret Carpenter:

(PD) The Carpenter portrait

That's a prominent chin and nose, neither of which show up on the daguerreotype above. But, we do see these features in an 1850 daguerreotype of Ada (she's 34):

From Doris Langley Moore's Ada, Countess of Lovelace

As I mentioned, they aged more and harder. And Ada was dying at this point, although her husband and mother hadn't told her. There is little resemblance to the woman in this photo and the girl in the ones above. 

There is a strong resemblance, however, between our mystery girl and Ralph, Ada and King's second son:

Ralph, aged 10, in 1849 from Doris Langley Moore's Ada, Countess of Lovelace

They look the exact same! Like Ralph-in-a-wig-the-exact-same! I think that the photo that gets posted as Ada is in fact of her daughter, Anne, born in 1837. I have ransacked the internet and a couple of libraries looking for the source of the contentious pic, to no avail. I did manage to turn up this photo of Anne, aged thirtyish, for comparison:

Anne, from Dorothy Stein's Ada: A Life and Legacy

So, what does it all mean? Not much: I look at a lot of pictures and get confused, it's hard to tell how old people are in daguerreotypes, and PEOPLE SHOULD REALLY CREDIT THEIR PHOTO SOURCES ON THE INTERNET*. But does it matter? Possibly: I would argue that it would be a testament to Ada's scientific rigour to identify her properly online. Maybe we should all use a bit more caution and critical thinking when we Google-Image something or someone for the purposes of reposting that picture. Maybe we should source our material better, so as not to pass on misinformation. (See the parable of "Weapons of Mass Destruction".) Maybe part of celebrating Ada is to call into question our assumptions about information and its applications as she did, creating a bit of a mess and confusion in the name of getting at the right answers or the best ones. Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

Links!

You can find more info about Ada Lovelace Day at findingada.com.

For another example of Ada as a mascot for women in science, visit the Ada Initiative.

- LC

*I have not linked to the sources of the images of Ada/Anne to protect the innocent. I really might be wrong, after all.