Lovelace vs Babbage: is the machine a mind or a mill?
ADA LOVELACE vs BABBAGE go head to head — and every jab is rooted in real history.
ADA LOVELACE
Your Engine can weave algebra as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers, Charles, and I saw it before you did.
BABBAGE
I built the brass and gears, madam; you wrote poetry in the margins of my arithmetic.
ADA LOVELACE
That 'poetry' was the first program ever written, and I also warned you: the machine can only do what we order it to perform, never originate a thought.
BABBAGE
Then grant me the mill that grinds the numbers, and keep your poetry, for without my engine your notes are music with no instrument to play them.
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