[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 592 Agreed to Senate (ATS)]

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115th CONGRESS
  2d Session
S. RES. 592

   Designating October 9, 2018, as ``National Ada Lovelace Day'' and 
   honoring the life and legacy of Ada Lovelace, the first computer 
                              programmer.


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                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             July 25, 2018

   Mr. Wyden (for himself and Mrs. Fischer) submitted the following 
             resolution; which was considered and agreed to

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                               RESOLUTION


 
   Designating October 9, 2018, as ``National Ada Lovelace Day'' and 
   honoring the life and legacy of Ada Lovelace, the first computer 
                              programmer.

Whereas Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace, now known as Ada Lovelace, 
        was born on December 10, 1815, in London, United Kingdom;
Whereas, from a young age, Lovelace displayed a gift for mathematics, languages, 
        and the sciences;
Whereas, at the age of 17, Lovelace began to study mathematics under the 
        guidance of scientist and translator Mary Somerville and, later, 
        logician Augustus de Morgan;
Whereas, in 1833, Lovelace was introduced to inventor and mechanical engineer, 
        Charles Babbage, and began to study his designs for the Analytical 
        Engine, a mechanical computer;
Whereas Lovelace was the first person to recognize that the Analytical Engine 
        could be used to manipulate symbols and letters and was the first person 
        to theorize that the Analytical Engine could be used to create music and 
        graphics;
Whereas, in 1843, Lovelace published step-by-step instructions for using the 
        Analytical Engine to calculate Bernoulli numbers ``without having been 
        worked out by human head and hands first'';
Whereas these insights gave Lovelace an unparalleled vision of the future of 
        computer science, and she stated that ``[a] new, a vast and a powerful 
        language is [being] developed for the future use of analysis, in which 
        to wield its truths so that these may become of more speedy and accurate 
        practical application for the purposes of mankind'';
Whereas the work of Lovelace went widely unrecognized until the 1950s, when her 
        papers were republished, and their significance and her contributions to 
        the fields of computer science and mathematics were finally 
        acknowledged;
Whereas, in the 1980s, to honor the contributions of Lovelace, the Department of 
        Defense named its newly created computer language ``Ada'' after 
        Lovelace;
Whereas the second Tuesday in October is annually celebrated as Ada Lovelace Day 
        and is intended to honor women in science, technology, engineering, and 
        mathematics and their accomplishments and contributions to academia and 
        the world; and
Whereas Ada Lovelace died on November 27, 1852, leaving behind a legacy of 
        poetic science and reasoning, in which the arts and sciences are woven 
        together to find new insights: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) designates October 9, 2018, as ``National Ada Lovelace 
        Day''; and
            (2) honors the life and contributions of Ada Lovelace, a 
        leading woman in science and mathematics and the first computer 
        programmer.
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