day SEVEN HUNDRED and SEVENTY FIVE

ADA

(Ada Augusta Noel-King, Countess Lovelace 1815–1852)

The legitimate daughter of Lord Byron

and his Princess of Parallelograms

explained how Babbage’s Analytical Engine

produced logical number patterns

and published the first computer program,

when card-fed looms wove repeated designs.

Is there a calculus of the nervous system?

Cancer took her without an answer.

But a Pentagon researcher deciphered her question:

the 1990s built neural networks

that mapped the software to guide smart bombs;

programs based on her concepts

now defined in US Military Standard 1815 - ADA

--Emma Lee