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Lovelace published one scientific paper in her life. It contains what is generally called the first algorithm written for a machine — and a contemporary assessment of her ability from one of the best mathematicians in England, which is rarer and more useful than any estimate.
The documented output is one paper. That is a very small evidence base, and the surviving correspondence shows Babbage’s heavy involvement in the work — the division of credit has been argued over for decades and is not settled. A range this high rests on the quality of a single document and on De Morgan’s assessment, not on a body of work.
Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.
Average is 100 by construction, and about two-thirds of people fall between 85 and 115. Take the test to place your own score on this scale.
| Score range | Classification | Share of people | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85 – 114 | Average | ~68% | The range most people fall into. |
| 115 – 129 | Above average | ~13.6% | Roughly one person in seven. |
| 130 – 144 | Gifted | ~2% | The threshold most high-IQ societies use. |
| Above 144 | Highly gifted | ~0.1% | Figures above this range are extrapolated from the curve rather than measured. |
Percentages are approximate and describe a normal distribution. The same number means different things on tests with different standard deviations.
Thirty questions gives you a measured position on this exact scale — your score, your percentile and the ability breakdown behind it.
Find out in 30 minutes →Augusta Ada Byron was born in London in 1815, the only legitimate child of Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Milbanke. Her parents separated weeks after her birth and she never met her father. Her mother, herself mathematically trained, had her tutored in mathematics deliberately — by most accounts as a corrective against the temperament she feared Ada had inherited.
Her tutors included Mary Somerville and, from 1840, Augustus De Morgan. She met Charles Babbage in 1833, when she was seventeen, and saw the working portion of his Difference Engine. The collaboration that produced the Notes ran for the next decade.
She married William King, later Earl of Lovelace, in 1835. She published the Notes in 1843, at twenty-seven, and published nothing further. She died of uterine cancer in 1852, aged thirty-six.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystThe estimate above rests on this record. Every entry here is a matter of public fact, which is more than can be said for the number itself.
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
The Lovelace case inverts the usual problem here. Most subjects on this site have a large invented number and a thin documentary record. Lovelace has no reliable number and one exceptionally rich document — and the argument about her has always been about what that document proves.
The Notes are the whole case. In 1843 she translated Luigi Menabrea’s French description of Babbage’s Analytical Engine and appended seven notes of her own, labelled A to G, running to about three times the length of the piece she was translating. Note G contains the Bernoulli-number method that is usually called the first computer program. Note A contains the more interesting claim: that a machine operating on symbols need not be confined to arithmetic.
The dispute is over authorship. Babbage’s surviving letters show him deeply involved, and some historians read the Notes as substantially his work with her as an able expositor. Others point to the correspondence in which she pushes back on his suggestions and to the fact that the conceptual claim in Note A appears nowhere in his own writing. We take no position beyond noting the range is uncertain because the attribution is. The strongest independent evidence remains De Morgan’s private assessment, made to her mother and not for publication.
How we read a number →Her only published scientific work. The seven appended Notes, including Note G, are the entire documentary basis for her reputation.
A private assessment of her mathematical capacity by a leading mathematician who had actually taught her. The strongest independent contemporary evidence in the file.
Lovelace is not in it, though born in 1815, inside the study’s window. Cox selected from Cattell’s 1903 eminence list; her modern reputation postdates it by decades.
She died in 1852. Intelligence testing began in 1905. No test exists or could exist.
Historians differ on how much of the Notes is Babbage’s. This is an open scholarly question and it directly widens the uncertainty on any estimate of her ability.
The figures that circulate for Ada Lovelace, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
No figure circulates consistently, which is itself unusual for someone this famous. Where numbers appear at all they are scattered and unattributed.
Lovelace died in 1852 and was never tested. She is also not among Cox’s 301, despite being born in 1815, inside the study’s 1450–1850 window — so no historiometric figure exists for her from the one study that produced them for her contemporaries. The absence of a circulating number is real, and this page does not supply one where the record has none.
There is no spread to report. That is a better position than most pages on this site, where the spread is the whole story.
Want a number that does hold up? Every figure on this page is somebody’s claim. Take the 30-question test and get a percentile you can check rather than a figure you have to trust.
No test exists — she died in 1852, before intelligence testing was invented, and unusually no invented figure circulates for her either. Our 155–175 range is inferred from her 1843 Notes and from De Morgan’s contemporary assessment.
Note G of her 1843 Notes sets out a step-by-step method for computing Bernoulli numbers on the Analytical Engine, and it is generally described as the first published algorithm intended for a machine.
No. She was born in 1815, inside the study’s 1450–1850 window, but Cox selected from a ranking of eminence compiled in 1903, and her modern reputation was established well after that.
This is disputed. His letters show substantial involvement, and some historians credit him with most of the mathematics. The conceptual claim that the engine could operate on non-numerical symbols does not appear in his own writing.
Nothing. The 1843 Notes are her only published scientific work, which is why any estimate of her ability rests on a very small evidence base.
Mary Somerville, and from 1840 Augustus De Morgan, one of the leading British mathematicians of the period. De Morgan’s written assessment of her is the strongest independent evidence about her ability.
You can find out in about fifteen minutes. The IQ Metrics assessment is 30 questions, scored on the same 100-mean scale used throughout this page, so your result and the estimate above are at least expressed in the same units — one measured, one inferred. Once you have a number, the leaderboard shows where it would sit, and how we score and norm it explains the benchmarking.
From the documented record rather than a test — the method is named above and set out in full under how we read a number. Compare it against the other historical profiles, starting with Isaac Newton.
Portrait © Matthew Yohe, CC BY-SA 3.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work and is likewise offered under the same licence. · Portrait © Debbie Rowe / The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0. The background-removed portrait above is a derivative work and is likewise offered under the same licence. · Portrait by Christopher Smith, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — a work of the U.S. federal government, public domain. Background removed for the portrait above.
Thirty questions, scored against general-population benchmarks. Your score, your percentile, your ability breakdown and a printable IIF certificate.
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