Ada Lovelace: Mathematician and First Programmer

Born to the poet Lord Byron and his highly educated wife Annabella, Ada Lovelace grew up in Victorian England with a love of numbers and machines. Despite chronic health problems, she became fascinated by the work of Charles Babbage and, at age twenty-four, helped create the first set of instructions for a mechanical calculator an achievement that later earned her the title of the world's first computer programmer. The biography follows her struggles against the limited opportunities allowed for women of her time, her inventive spirit, and her life cut short at thirty-six.