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The very idea of Sir Robert Peel having a meeting about computers takes a bit of

getting used to. But is Essinger right to claim that “Had the meeting been successful,
the seeds would have been sown for the start of an information technology revolution
in Victorian Britain. The ways in which technology might have been accelerated and
history run differently, over the course of almost two centuries, are too enormous to
contemplate.” “What ifs” are not good history, even though this one is more
intriguing than most.

At this point, Ada wrote to Charles and virtually offered to take over as project-

manager for his work, including future funding requests, but he politely declined. He
seemed to think it would suffice to get favourable reports for his work in learned
journals. This seems unlikely, but ironically it was one such article that gave Ada her
golden moment in history. One of the scientists who wrote warmly of Babbage’s
work was an Italian mathematician and engineer, Luigi Menabrea, in an article
written in French and published in 1841 in an obscure Swiss learned journal. Ada
seized this opportunity, translated the article, and sent it to Babbage.

In a revealing exchange, Babbage asked her why, given her deep understanding of
the Engine, she hadn’t written an original article of her own. Ada replied that this
hadn’t occurred to her! Babbage then suggested that she should write some notes
and observations of her own and append them to her translation. Ada agreed; her
“Notes”, footnotes to Menabrea article, ended up three times longer than the
original. The article plus Notes were published in 1843.Their contents are Ada
Lovelace’s main claim to fame.

Ada’s Notes to Menabrea’s paper
Ava’s Notes show a deep technical understanding of the Analytical Engine and the
mathematics underlying it. But they go far beyond this. They also include
observations of her own which have profound significance for the future of
computing.

Some sceptics have claimed that Babbage, not Lovelace, wrote these notes, even
though they were published under her initials. It does seem, and was to be expected,
that Babbage made suggestions to her what to include, and probably also
commented on the notes as she wrote them. But in his memoirs, Babbage clearly
credits Ada as their author. He also acknowledges that in one of his suggestions to
her, she noticed and corrected “a grave mistake” which he had made. There seems
no obvious reason why Babbage would invent all this. Indeed, Babbage fans who
argue that he so far exceeded Ada in greatness that it is inconceivable that she wrote

them, must also explain why such a great man would lie in his memoirs.