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As this passage shows, in the absence of modern computer terminology, Charles and

Ada had to define their concepts carefully. For example, Ada wrote, “It may be
desirable to explain, that by the word operation, we mean any process which alters
the mutual relation of two or more things, be this relation of what kind it may. This is
the most general definition, and would include all subjects in the universe.”

Even more than the programmes Ada wrote, it is her grasp of the idea of the
Analytical Engine as a general-purpose computer which makes her a truly ground-
breaking figure. Such a computer would be capable of “developing and tabulating

any function whatever. The engine is the material expression of any indefinite
function of any degree of generality and complexity.” This clearly wasn’t some
random flight of fancy, but a concept she had clearly thought hard about and she had
a solid grasp of the theory behind it: “The Analytical Engine might act upon other
things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations
could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should
be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and

mechanism of the engine. Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of
pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were
susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate
and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.”

The concept of a general computer that could do anything, even compose music,
given the right programming, was an extraordinary leap for Lovelace to make and
one that many of her male peers struggled to understand. It is no exaggeration to say

that she was a hundred years ahead of her time. She made the conceptual leap which
enabled her to grasp the secret of the modern computer’s formidable power: that
the numbers they manipulate can be made to be symbolic not merely of other things,
but of anything we choose.

A century later, in 1953, Ada’s Notes were republished; computer programming was

just beginning to be an occupation, and she was beginning to be recognized as a
visionary of computing and a pioneer of programming. Ada’s own description of her
work was “Analyst & Metaphysician.”

Ada Lovelace and Alan Turing
Thus, Ada not only showed a more profound understanding than anyone other than
Babbage of the Analytical Engine, she also pointed the way to the modern computer.
She was the first to do this, almost a century before Alan Turing’s ground-breaking
paper of 1936 in which he fully described the modern concept of computing in terms

of modern mathematical logic. Turing must have known of her work, although it is