Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I Heart Radio and

Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, all of these

amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Aida Lovelace had always been someone who threw herself into her hobbies.

As an aristocratic young woman in 17th century England, it was all she really could do.

Many of her friends found passion in the few pastimes deemed ladylike enough for them,

like embroidery, music, and writing poetry, but Ada

had a significantly different pastime, advanced mathematics. She came by it honestly.

Her mother, Annabella, was an amateur mathematician herself, and her father, Lord Byron, was one of the most famous poets and intellectuals of his time.

Just as famous was his reputation for debauchery, thrill-seeking, and his strong will, which led

Annabella to separate from him when Ada was just a year old.

Fearing her daughter would inherit what she called Lord Byron's madness,

Annabella insisted Ada fill her brain instead with languages, classic literature, science,

and mathematics. And these latter subjects were always Ada's favorite. She would

doodle designs for flying machines in her workbooks and ask insightful questions

about the science of everyday phenomena like rainbows.

Ada's interest in math took a turn from everyday phenomena like rainbows.

Ada's interest in math took a turn from hobbyist to professional

when she attended a party in 1832 at the age of 17.

The host, a man named Charles, showed Ada and her mother his latest invention, a steam-powered

math machine.

Now, at the time, to solve any sort of complex calculations, you would have to write them out

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