Sketch Analytical Engine Invented Charles by Lovelace Lady Ada Augusta (1 results)

First edition. THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENT IN THE HISTORY OF MODERN COMPUTING. First edition, extremely rare offprint, of the most important document in the history of digital computing before modern times, Ada Lovelace's greatly enlarged translation of Luigi Menabrea's description of Babbage's Analytical Engine, the first programmable digital computer this is by far the most detailed contemporary account. The sammelband containing this copy, one of about a dozen known, of which at least half are in institutional collections, was probably owned by a Piedmontese aristocrat, who in turn obtained the Sketch directly from Menabrea (see below). "In 1840 Babbage travelled to Turin to make a presentation on the Engine to a group of Italian scientists. Babbage's talk, complete with charts, drawings, models and mechanical notations, emphasized the Engine's signal feature: its ability to guide its own operations. In attendance at Babbage's lecture was the young Italian mathematician, Luigi Federico Menabrea (later prime minister of Italy), who prepared from his notes an account of the principles of the Analytical Engine. He published his paper in French in a Swiss journal two years after Babbage's presentation After the appearance of Menabrea's paper, the daughter of Lord Byron, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, became interested in preparing an English translation At Babbage's suggestion, Lady Lovelace added seven explanatory notes to her translation, which ran about three times the length of the original. Because Babbage never published a detailed description of the Analytical Engine, Ada's translation of Menabrea's paper, with its lengthy explanatory notes, represents the most complete contemporary account in English of the intended design and operation of the first programmable digital computer. Babbage considered this paper a complete summary of the mathematical aspects of the machine, proving 'that the whole of the development and operations of Analysis are now capable of being executed by machinery.' As part of his contribution to the project, Babbage supplied Ada with algorithms for the solution of various problems. These he had had worked out years ago, except for one involving Bernoulli numbers, which was new. Ada illustrated these algorithms in her notes in the form of charts detailing the stepwise sequence of events as the hypothetical machine would progress through a string of instructions input from punched cards. These procedures, and the procedures published in the original edition of Menabrea's paper, were the first published examples of computer 'programs.' Ada also expanded upon Babbage's general views of the Analytical Engine as a symbol-manipulating device rather than a mere processor of numbers" (OOC). She "expressed this idea in a passage of prophetic insight: 'The bounds of arithmetic were, however, outstepped the moment the idea of applying the cards had occurred; and the Analytical Engine does not occupy common ground with mere 'calculating machines'. It holds a position wholly its own; and the considerations it suggests are most interesting in their nature. In enabling mechanism to combine together general symbols, in successions of unlimited variety and extent, a uniting link is established between the operations of matter and the abstract mental processes of the most abstract branch of mathematical science. A new, a vast and a powerful language is developed for the future use of analysis, in which to wield its truths so that these may become of more speedy and accurate practical application for the purposes of mankind than the means hitherto in our possession have rendered possible. Thus not only the mental and the material, but the theoretical and the practical in the mathematical world, are brought into more intimate and effective connexion with each other. We are not aware of its being on record that anything partaking of the nature of what is so well designated the Analytical Engine has been hitherto proposed, or even thought of, as a practical possibility, any more than the idea of a thinking or of a reasoning machine'" (Hodges, pp. 374-375). Of the 250 copies printed, we have located 12 other extant copies, of which at least 6 are in institutional collections. RBH lists 4 other copies: Christie's, December 11, 2019, £212,500 (Richard Ford copy); Sotheby's, September 18, 2018, £75,000 (Tomash copy); Christie's New York, June 17, 2008, $170,500 (Richard Green copy); Christie's New York, February 23, 2005, $78,000 (OOC copy); another copy was sold by Moore Allen & Innocent, July 20, 2018, £117,800. Institutional copies are located at: Biblioteca Reale, Turin; British Library; King's College, London (Wheatstone's copy); John Gardner Wilkinson Library, Calke Abbey, Derby (2 copies); Senate House, University of London (De Morgan's copy); and Trinity College, Dublin. Provenance: 1. Contemporary inscription 'From the Translator /Byron's Daughter!) / London 1843' written on verso of front free endpaper, and in the same hand 'Ada Lady Lovelace / (Byron)' at the foot of the last page of text, after her printed initials 'A. L. L.' The inscriptions are probably in the hand of Lady Lovelace's husband, William King, Earl of Lovelace (as in the OOC copy). 2. Ada was given 100 copies of the offprint which her husband largely distributed. While it cannot be determined with certainty who received the present copy, it was very likely Menabrea himself. He in turn probably gave it to a member of the Piedmontese aristocracy, who compiled the present sammelband. See below for supporting evidence. "Ada grew up essentially in a single-parent home; Lady Byron left the abusive household of the famous poet Lord Byron when Ada was ?ve weeks old. Lady Byron (who had herself received some training in mathematics) was primarily responsible for Ada's education up to and including the time Ada met Charles Babbage when she was 17 and he 42, and she first saw Babbage's prototype Difference Engine, a me.