Ada Lovelace first met Charles Babbage in 1833.
More precisely, the meeting took place on 5 June 1833 at one of Babbage’s Saturday evening soirées. Ada, then Ada Byron and about seventeen years old, attended with her mother and their mutual friend Mary Somerville. Somerville was a respected mathematician and astronomer who also helped guide Ada’s education.
At the time, Babbage was developing the Difference Engine, a mechanical calculating machine. Later that month, he invited Ada to see a working prototype. She was fascinated by the machinery, and the meeting developed into a long friendship and intellectual collaboration.
Their most famous joint connection came years later through Babbage’s Analytical Engine. In 1843, Ada translated Menabrea’s description of the machine and added extensive notes, including her Bernoulli-number algorithm. Babbage admired her analytical ability and reportedly called her the “Enchantress of Number.” The 1833 meeting therefore marked the beginning of a relationship that became important in the early history of computing.