Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Celebrating Ada Lovelace

     Today, 13 October 2020, is  Ada Lovelace Day -- celebrated each year on the second Tuesday of October and an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).  Born to a famous father, poet Lord Byron -- and first known as Augusta Ada Byron (1815-1852), Countess of Lovelace — this talented woman became far better known as "Ada Lovelace" (1815-1852).  Lovelace worked on an early mechanical computer, "the Analytical Engine" -- and, because of her recognition of the varied applications of this machine, she is often regarded to be one of the first computer programmers.

Here is a link to a poem, "Bird, Moon, Engine" by Jo Pitkin that celebrates Ada Lovelace (with opening stanzas offered below) and this link leads to some of Lovelace's own poetic wordsAt this link are the results of a blog search using "Ada Lovelace" that leads to the aforementioned works and lots of other poems about math women.

From Pitkin's sonnet about Ada Lovelace


I have recently learned of a "Playing Cards Project" that will celebrate the 50th anniversary of AWM (Association for Women in Mathematics) -- a project-in-progress intended to bring to the forefront the important (and many of them untold) achievements of math women.  Here is a link to some preliminary information about the project.

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