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Heroine: Marie Curie

Heroine: Ada Lovelace

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Augusta Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace wrote the above in 1843. She had undertaken, at Charles Babbage's behest, a translation from the French of Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea's description of Babbage's lecture in Turin on what he called an "Analytical Engine." In her notes, which are longer than the text being translated, she presents for her English-speaking audience a clear distinction between the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine, as well as how the Jacquard loom punch cards could be fed into the Analytical Engine so that the program could be held separate (and repeatable) from the device itself. "We may say most aptly, that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves." She clearly inherited some of her father's poetic manner. Later in the notes, she sets forth a series of calculations for this as-yet hypothetical machine, which, although she didn't get to run it, are recognized as the very first computer program. ...........

Madame Marie Skłodowska-Curie wrote the above in 1923, recalling the work that she and husband Pierre Curie did at the turn of the century to isolate radioactive isotopes. It was during this time studying the curious Uranium emissions noticed by Henri Becquerel that she proved that Thorium was also radioactive, a word coined by her. In 1898 the Curies published papers announcing the discoveries of Polonium and Radium. In 1903 Marie shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband and Becquerel, becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and in 1911, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, becoming the first person to attain a second. She was determined that scientific knowledge should be open and free. "..................