Radia Perlman

Networking Maven

Photo: Public Domain

Her impact on technology:

Network engineer Radia Perlman helped make Ethernet technology a household name. Her
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) made it possible to build massive networks using Ethernet
by creating a mesh network of layer-2 bridges and then disabling the links that aren’t part
of that tree.
This networking innovation had a significant impact on network switches, which has led
some to call Perlman the Mother of the Internet — a title that she eschews.

“It's overreaching because I don't think any single individual deserves credit for inventing
the Internet. Many people had large roles, including, actually, Al Gore, and in a sense it
was something that was inevitable,” Perlman said in an Intel Free Press story.
Where is she now?
Perlman is currently an Intel fellow, helping the company improve its network and
security technologies.
Perlman recently developed the new TRansparent Interconnection of Lots of Links
(TRILL), anew standard for data center connectivity that could replace her earlier STP
invention.
Words of wisdom:
“The world would be a better place if more engineers, like me, hated
technology. The stuff I design, if I'm successful, nobody will ever notice.
Things will just work, and be self-managing.” — Radia Perlman on good
technology being invisible in an IT World story

Ada Lovelace
Algorithm Enchantress

Photo: Public Domain

Her impact on technology:

Ada Lovelace was unique in that she developed an algorithm for a computer that didn’t
yet exist — an accomplishment that some say qualifies her as the world’s first computer
programmer.
Born to English nobility in 1815, Lovelace was put to work by Charles Babbage in 1843,
documenting his never-to-be-realized “computer,” the Analytical Engine. Starting with a
document written in French by Luigi Menabrea, an Italian mathematician, Lovelace added
extensive notes to the English translation, including the world’s first computer algorithm.

The Analytical Engine was intended to count Bernoulli numbers, but Babbage was
unsuccessful in getting the funding to build his machine. Notably, Lovelace was able to
see the potential for the computer beyond simple math.

“Many persons who are not conversant with mathematical studies imagine that because the
business of [Babbage’s Analytical Engine] is to give its results in numerical notation, the
nature of its processes must consequently be arithmetical and numerical, rather than
algebraical and analytical. This is an error. The engine can arrange and combine its
numerical quantities exactly as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and in
fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made
accordingly,” Lovelace wrote in the Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles
Babbage, Esq.
Where is she now?
In 1852, Lovelace died of uterine cancer at the age of 36.
Her work went largely underreported for many years, but today she’s celebrated each year
on Ada Lovelace Day and memorialized by the object-oriented programming language that
bears her name, Ada.
Four generations later, one of Lovelace’s descendants, Honora Smith, is following in her
footsteps by carving out a career in math and computer science, with a focus on operations
research.
Words of wisdom:
“A new, a vast, and a powerful language is developed for the future use
of analysis, in which to wield its truths so that these may become of more
speedy and accurate practical application for the purposes of mankind
than the means hitherto in our possession have rendered possible.” — Ada
Lovelace wrote on the possibilities of a machine-driven computing language in her notes
on theAnalytical Engine