Q 01/05

Which novelist visited the dying Lovelace in 1852 and, at her request, read to her from one of his books?

A) Charles Dickens

B) William Thackeray

C) Wilkie Collins

D) Anthony Trollope

Answer · why

A) Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens. She asked him for the scene in Dombey and Son in which six-year-old Paul Dombey dies; the two had probably met years earlier through ...

Q 02/05

What became of the Analytical Engine that Lovelace's famous Notes describe?

A) It was sold for scrap

B) It ran until the 1870s

C) It burned in a workshop fire

D) It was never built

Answer · why

D) It was never built

It was never built. Babbage finished only small trial pieces, so her program was never run; a project called Plan 28, launched in 2010, set out to bui...

Q 03/05

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

A) The first computer programmer

B) The first woman engineer

C) The first science journalist

D) The first technical translator

Answer · why

A) The first computer programmer

The first computer programmer. The title is argued over, since Babbage had drafted programs of his own years earlier, but hers was the first to be pub...

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

Bernoulli numbers. Babbage offered to work this example himself to save her the trouble, and she sent his version back after finding a grave mistake i...

Q 05/05

What did Lovelace suggest Babbage's engine might one day do, beyond working with numbers?

A) Compose music

B) Forecast the weather

C) Translate languages

D) Paint portraits

Answer · why

A) Compose music

Compose music. She reasoned that if the relations of musical notes could be expressed in the engine's notation, it 'might compose elaborate and scient...