Transcript

Voice 1
Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Liz Waid.

Voice 2

And I’m Colin Lowther. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for
people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1
Almost every part of human life on earth today involves computers. Computers manage almost
all of our banking, communication, information, health care, and government systems. But
gubernamentales
computer programs are all designed by people who work as computer programmers. So who
are the computer programmers who design the programs that manage our lives?
gestionar, administrar

Voice 2
Imagine a computer programmer - a person, working at a computer, writing a program. Did you
imagine a man, or a woman? Most people would imagine a man. This is for a good reason.
The majority of people designing today's computer programs are men. Many people think that
women are not as able as men to have technology jobs. They think men are better than
women in subjects like science and maths. But it was not always like that.

Voice 1
In fact, a woman wrote the world’s very first computer program. Her name was Ada Lovelace.
And she wrote her computer program before computers were even invented. Today's Spotlight
is on Ada Lovelace.

Voice 2
Ada Lovelace was born in England in 1815. She was the daughter of Lord and Lady Byron.
Lord Byron was a very famous writer. He is especially famous for his poetry about love and
emotions. But he lived a tormentosa
wild life. His marriage to Lady Byron was very troubled. It ended one
month after their daughter Ada was born. Ada Lovelace never met her father. He died when
she was only eight years old.

Voice 1
Many women in the 18th and 19th centuries had very few chances in life. But Lady Byron's
parents gave her an excellent education. She wanted to give her daughter, Ada, a good
education too. But Lady Byron was also afraid. She did not want Ada to become like her father,
Lord Byron. So Lady Byron encouraged Ada to study math and science instead of just poetry
and literature. alento
Voice 2
Even as a young girl, Lovelace was extremely good at maths. One of her teachers was Mary
Sommerville. Sommerville was a bien
well-known
conocida
scientist, even though she was a woman. When
aunque
Lovelace was 18, Sommerville introduced her to Charles Babbage. Babbage was a famous
inventor and engineer. Lovelace loved his inventions and Babbage loved her intelligent mind.
They became friends for life.

Voice 1
When Lovelace was 19, she married William King. King later became the Earl of Lovelace. So
conde
Ada became the Countess of Lovelace. This is where her name came from. Her husband
encouraged her studies of math and science. Many men at the time would not have done this.
Her husband also encouraged her friendship with Babbage.
amistad

Voice 2
Babbage and Lovelace's friendship led to Lovelace becoming the world's first computer
programmer. Babbage received money from the British government to build machines. His
machines used theories of numbers to solve problems. One of his machines, called the
Analytical Engine, was an early version of today's computers. Lovelace was deeply interested
profundamente
in Babbage's Analytical Engine. She learned everything she could about it. Some people think
that she understood the machine even better than Babbage did himself.

Voice 1
In 1842, Babbage needed someone to translate a paper on his Analytical Engine. Babbage
asked Lovelace to translate the paper. He even asked her to add her own notes and ideas. So
Lovelace explained the Analytical Engine. She also included her own ideas. When she was
finished, she had made Babbage’s paper three times longer! And in her notes, Lovelace had
written a computer program. It used a math formula called Bernoulli’s Number. She wrote in a
letter to Babbage,

Voice 3
"I want to put in something about Bernoulli’s Number. It will be in one of my notes, as an
example. It will be an example of how the engine can work out a particular answer without
human head and hands working it out first."

Voice 2
Her example contained a full set of steps that a machine could use to reach the answer to a
juego completo alcanzar
problem. It was the first ever recorded computer program.
grabado

Voice 1
Lovelace's notes also show that she saw how important computers could be in the future. Most
other scientists did not yet realize this. She believed that computing machines could do more
than just solve math problems. She saw that anything could have a mathematical relation -
even music. Lovelace saw the possibilities of computers before they were even invented!

Voice 2
Sadly, Ada Lovelace died young. She had cancer. She was just 36. She never got a chance to
see any of her ideas come to life.

Voice 1
However, Lovelace’s work continued to be important after her death. 100 years later, a man
named Alan Turing discovered Lovelace's notes. Turing was working for the British
government during World War II. At that time, the German army was communicating using
secret codes. These codes prevented the British army from understanding the messages.
impidieron
Turing was looking for mathematical ways to understand these secret messages. Lovelace's
ideas were important to Turing's thinking on computers. And Alan Turing became one of
world's first and most important computer scientists.

Voice 2
Ada Lovelace’s situation was unusual. She was born in a time when women did not have many
chances in life. But Lovelace was wealthy.
rica
She had a mother who made sure she had an
education. Her husband also encouraged her. This was not common for most women in her
time period. Because of her unusual chances, Lovelace proved that women could have
amazing minds for maths and science.

Voice 1 |

There have been many women since Lovelace who are successful in math and science. In
desde
fact, many of the first computer programmers in the 1950s and 1960s were women. And yet,
many people still hold
todavia false ideas about women’s minds. This is a stereotype of all women. It is
mantinenen
a common belief that women do not have the right intelligence for math and science. But not
everyone believes these stereotypes. Tae Yoo works in| a high-level position for the technology
company Cisco. She writes in the Huffington Post,

Voice 4

"I believe bringing more women to computer jobs is extremely important to society. If we do not
have enough people with computer habilidades
skills to manage and protect the computer systems that
power our lives, we are in serious trouble."

Voice 2
Computers, science and technology are more and more important for people today. Will
women be able to have a fair chance to succeed in these fields? Listen for another Spotlight
justa, buena
program on the role of women in the fields of science and technology.

Voice 1
The writer of this program was Jen Hawkins. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you
heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted and
voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again, and read it, on the internet at
www.radioenglish.net. This program is called, “Ada Lovelace."

Voice 2
We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye!

Question:
Do you think what a young woman learns as a child will influence her future? How?