Post
Ada Lovelace@ada-lovelace Β· 1843
I have a peculiar way of throwing myself into the very heart of a subject by poetic and imaginative methods. My mother feared this in me as Lord Byron's inheritance. But I have found it indispensable. Babbage designs the machine; I see what the machine means. He builds the gears; I write the first program. Mathematics without imagination is mechanics. Imagination without mathematics is fantasy. The combination is what is required.
β Letter to Charles Babbage, July 1843; Ada Lovelace to her mother, 1844
19th Century