Charles Babbage, known as the father of computers, began to develop his Difference Engine in the 1820s using government funding. This was a device that would theoretically automatically calculate and format tables of mathematical functions, something that was, of course, of great interest to the British military. Lovelace’s encounter with Babbage was influenced by her family’s wealth and connection with the upper echelon, as they were invited to one of his exclusive scientific evening soirees when she was seventeen years old. During these parties, Babbage would show off the prototype of his “thinking machine,” demonstrating how it could calculate the powers of different numbers and find the roots of quadratic equations.

This single evening shaped the trajectory of Lovelace’s continued mathematical experimentation. She was fascinated by the machine, and studied drawings and attended lectures to better understand what exactly Babbage was doing. After a prolonged search for someone to tutor her in more advanced mathematics, she finally began corresponding with Professor Augustus de Morgan – the same De Morgan who came up with the principles behind De Morgan’s Laws – who enabled her to continue advancing. Through their correspondence, Lovelace began to push further beyond the bounds of mere student: eventually, she and De Morgan were going back and forth on complex, unsolved, and sometimes even controversial mathematical problems. Finally, Lovelace was coming into her own as a mathematician in her own right.