Following Faraday

by Jane Waite, Queen Mary University of London

Ada was interested in all things scientific and was certainly interested in electricity. As well as working with Babbage she conversed by letter, not email, text or twitter, with Michael Faraday. Faraday was a very important scientist of the day, the head of the Royal Institution, making significant discoveries in physics and chemistry. His work on electromagnetism laid foundations for electricity to become the everyday essential we now can’t do without.

She wrote “Perhaps no one has read your paper with such full appreciation as myself of it’s practical bearings; or has valued it so justly, both for it’s contents, & as presented to me by it’s Author, for whom I entertain an esteem little short of reverence.”

Ada sure knew who was who in scientific circles. She presumably would have ‘liked’ his posts, followed him on Twitter and been a friend on Facebook!