станок.
3.2.2 Text Ada Lovelace
Her name was Augusta Ada Byron, later Countess of Lovelace (née Byron, 18151852). Ada, the only legitimate daughter of the the infamous poet Lord Byron., was also herself a "free spirit", albeit one with an astonishingly brilliant intellect behind it. Her interests ranged from music to horses to calculating machines. Not only did she have the usual accomplishments in language and music, she was also an excellent mathematician. The latter was most unusual for a young lady in the nineteenth century.
Ada's mathematical abilities became apparent when she was only fifteen. She studied mathematics with one of the most well known mathematicians of her time, Augustus de Morgan.
In 1833 Ada met Babbage and was fascinated with both him and his Engines. Later Ada became a competent student of mathematics. Ada, married to the Earl of Lovelace and the mother of three children under the age of eight, translated a paper on Babbage's Engines by General Menabrea, later to be prime minister of the newly united Italy. Ada added extensive notes which constitute the best contemporary description of the Engines, and the best account we have of Babbage's views on the general powers of the Engines. Beautiful, charming, temperamental, an aristocratic hostess, mathematicians of the time thought her a magnificent addition to their number.
She became one of the first to suggest the use of "Jacquard Loom" type cards as a way of programming the Analytical Engine as well providing what may have been the first software programs. Lady Lovelace wrote, "that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves."
She suggested to Babbage writing a plan for how the engine might calculate Bernoulli numbers. This plan, is now regarded as one the first computer programs. Lady Lovelace could be very focused and a mathematical taskmaster. Ada's prescient comments included her predictions that such a machine might be used to compose complex music, to produce graphics, and would be used for both practical and scientific use. She was correct. Though her life was short (like her father, she died at 36), Ada anticipated by more than a century most of what we think is brand-new computing. A software language developed by the U.S. Department of Defense was named "Ada" in her honor in 1979.
3.2.3 Exercises
1 Read the text about the world's first computer programmer as many times as you can in 6 minutes. Then reproduce as much info as you can remember in a written form.
2 Translate the text into English. Add new details to Ada’s biography.
Ада Лавлейс разработала первые программы для аналитической машины, заложив тем самым теоретические основы программирования. Она впервые ввела понятие цикла операции. В одном из примечаний высказала главную мысль о том, что аналитическая машина может решать такие задачи, которые из-за трудности вычислений практически невозможно решить вручную. Так впервые машина была рассмотрена не только как механизм, заменяющий человека, но и как устройство, способное выполнять работу, превышающую возможности человека.
Ада создала программу для вычисления чисел Бернулли. Хотя программы не отлаживались и не работали, однако ряд высказанных ею общих положений (принцип экономии рабочих ячеек, связь рекуррентных формул с циклическими процессами вычислений) сохранили свое принципиальное значение и для современного программирования. В наши дни А.Лавлейс по праву называют первым программистом в мире.
3 Answer the following questions, exchange your opinions with partners, make comments to their answers, discuss the problem:
a) What kind of machine was the Analytical Engine?
b) Who is called "ather of computing" and who has the honor of being the world's first computer programmer?
c) What do you know about Ada Lovelace as a Lady and as a programmer?
d) Why is the name of A. Lovelace not so well known as that of C. Babage?
e) Do you agree that the role and contribution of women in science are greater than it is used to be thought of?
f) Ada's ideas are limited by discrimination against women in technology, science and mathematics in her time, are not they?.What is your opinion about the so called silinced information, conceiled by men-historians of science?
3.3 Career Hopping or Inventive Life of Hedy Lamarr
3.3.1 Read both texts in English and in Russian (Умная красавица)
Notes to the texts: frequency hopping – перескок частоты
MGM=Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – крупнейшая студия Голливуда (1924), знаменита актерами и фильмами: "Унесенные ветром" ("Gone With the Wind", 1939), "Волшебник страны Оз" ("Wizard of Oz", 1939) и др.
L.B.Mayer-основателей и руководитель MGM. Иммигрант из России.
institution – разг. непременный атрибут (к. – л. места)
expire – истечь (о сроках); потерять силу
jam – радио глушить, создавать помехи
spread-spectrum–широкополосный сигнал, с расширенным спектром
radio spectrum – спектр радиочастот
deploy – использовать в военных целях
war
