Ada, Countess of Lovelace is today's featured #matriarchymarch portrait. Ada was the daughter of Lord Byron, and is best known for being an exceptionally brilliant mathematician. Lord Byron had no relationship with Ada, having left shortly after her birth, and whom died when she was only 8. She was encouraged by her mother to pursue her interests in mathematics and logistics, however Ada was not close to her mother. Instead she was raised mostly by her maternal grandmother, as well as her private tutors. As a child Ada was often sick, suffering from bouts of headaches, and then was temporarily paralyzed after suffering a bout of measles. By 12 she became obsessed with the idea of flight, and dedicated herself to the study of birds, and the construction of her in set of wings. She documented her discoveries in a book she called Flyology, which included materials for constructing wings, and maps detailing a flight path. As and adult Ada became close friends with her tutor Mary Somerville, who would introduce her charge to a bevy of scientists. At 17 she was formally introduced at court, becoming an instant belle of the ball due to her brilliance and charm. Ada would eventually marry Earl William Lovelace, who became Viscount, which is how Ada would become Countess. Scandal would follow not long after with rumors of extra marital affairs with her male friends. Ada was also addicted to gamboling, and lost over £3,000 on horse racing. She tried to form a gamboling syndicate amongst some of her friends, based on mathematics, but was largely unsuccessful. She became massively in debt and could no longer hide her misdemeanors from her husband. Ada was only 36 when she died. It's said that during this final illness she admitted some secret to her husband which caused him to abandon her. It wasn't until the 1950's that Ada's contributions to the field of computing would be discovered and reintroduced to the world. Since then she's received a number of honors including a computer language developed by the USA DoD in1980. #martriarch #computer #history #computerscience #mathematician #herstory #mightygirl #womenempoweringwomen #rolemodel #countess #smartgirl #wome https://www.instagram.com/p/BuvW8_JFu_b/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=vbs6g8p47qkx
