Ada- The mail server | Bryn Mawr Computing

Ada, aka ada.brynmawr.edu, serves as our core mail server.

The server is named after Lady Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace (December 10, 1815 - November 27, 1852). Born to the poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabelle Milbanke, she was raised by her mother after her parents separated a month after her birth. In 1835 she married William King, and in 1838 they became the Earl and Countess of Lovelace. They had two sons and a daughter, Byron Noel (1836), Anne Isabella (1837) and Ralph Gordon (1839). Ada died of cancer shortly before 37th birthday.

Ada's mother, afraid of the Romantic influence of the child's father, raised her to be a mathematician and a scientist. Ada identified herself as "an Analyst and Metaphysician." (Others might call her an overachiever.) She worked extensively with Charles Babbage (1791-1871) who created the difference engine and later the analytical engine, which were calculating machines that were early precursors to the computer. In 1842, Louis Menebrea, an Italian mathematician, wrote a paper in French on Babbage's analytical engine, which Babbage asked Ada to translate into English. Not only did she translate it, but also added her own notes--which turned out to be three times as long as the original article! In these notes she showed how to compute Bernoulli numbers using the analytical engine, and thus earned the reputation for being the first computer programmer. She also articulated for the first time some of the promises of the analytical engine, seeing it as a general-purpose computer rather than merely a mathematical tool. Her understanding of computers thus anticipated what we know as "computing" by some 100 years.

The programming language ADA (Military Standard Specification MIL-STD-1815) was named in Ada's honor and the specification number chosen to reflect the year of her birth.