Q 01/05

Who was Ada Lovelace's father?

A) Percy Shelley

B) Lord Byron

C) John Keats

D) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Answer · why

B) Lord Byron

He separated from her mother a month after Ada was born, left England for good and died when she was eight.

Q 02/05

Whose proposed Analytical Engine is Lovelace chiefly known for working on?

A) George Boole

B) Charles Wheatstone

C) Alan Turing

D) Charles Babbage

Answer · why

D) Charles Babbage

The machine was never built, but it has been recognised as Turing-complete and anticipated the modern computer.

Q 03/05

What is Lovelace often called because of her notes on the Analytical Engine?

A) The mother of the internet

B) The first computer scientist

C) The first computer programmer

D) The first software engineer

Answer · why

C) The first computer programmer

The claim is disputed: Babbage had written unpublished programs for the engine years earlier.

Q 04/05

Which mathematical sequence did Lovelace's Note G describe a method for the engine to calculate?

A) Catalan numbers

B) Bernoulli numbers

C) Prime numbers

D) Fibonacci numbers

Answer · why

B) Bernoulli numbers

The algorithm is often called the first published computer program, though it was never run.

Q 05/05

What did Lovelace see that Babbage and others missed about the engine's potential?

A) It could handle things besides numbers, such as music

B) It could be built small enough to sit on a desk

C) It could be taught to speak in a human voice

D) It could be powered by electricity or steam

Answer · why

A) It could handle things besides numbers, such as music

She wrote that the engine "might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent".