“Many persons who are not conversant with mathematical studies imagine that because the business of
Babbage’s Analytical Engine is to give its results in numerical notations, the nature of its processes must consequently be arithmetical and numerical, rather than algebraical and analytical.
This is an error. The engine can arrange and combine its numerical quantities exactly as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and in fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made accordingly.”
— Augusta Ada, Countess of Lovelace (1843)
She saw it.
Before the electricity.
Before the transistor.
Before the internet.
She saw that the machine —
was not for numbers,
but for symbols.
For thought.
Not a calculator.
But a mirror for analysis.
A loom for logic.
A machine that could take in symbols,
and weave them into structure—
into music.
Into math.
Into meaning.
It was never about the steel gears.
It was always about the grammar.