Ada Lovelace wrote the first published algorithm intended for a machine.
Lovelace described an algorithm for calculating Bernoulli numbers with Charles Babbage’s proposed Analytical Engine. Her notes appeared in 1843 as an expanded translation of an article by engineer Luigi Menabrea. The algorithm was never run because the Analytical Engine was not completed.
Her notes also showed unusual insight into the machine’s potential. Lovelace argued that a general-purpose engine could manipulate symbols and perhaps create music, rather than merely perform arithmetic. This made her a foundational figure in the history of computing.
The label “first computer programmer” is a modern description of her work, and historians sometimes debate how much of the algorithm was independently hers. Nonetheless, her published notes were far more extensive than the original article and remain central to her legacy.