Code & Frequency: How Three Women Invented the Digital Age

By Kristen Pflibsen

February 1, 2026

Without a 19th-century countess, a 1940s movie star, and a confident female Navy Admiral, smartphones and Wi-Fi might not exist. The foundations of our high-tech world were laid by women whose genius was largely dismissed because the "hardware" of their eras hadn't yet caught up to their "software" brains. They were told their ideas were far from reality, yet they outpaced history—proving that true innovation isn't just about building the machine, but having the vision to imagine what the machine could one day become.

Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician, is widely recognized as the world's first computer programmer. In the 1840s, she worked on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine—a machine that existed only on paper. She developed the first algorithm intended for machine processing, which could calculate Bernoulli numbers. In doing so, she created the first conceptual computer language—the logical framework upon which all modern coding languages are built.

Key details about Ada Lovelace - 

Background: She was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron, combining "poetical science" with rigorous logic.

Contribution: She published detailed notes on the Analytical Engine, including what is considered the first computer program and the fundamental concept of "looping."

Visionary: She recognized that computers could go beyond calculation to process any data represented by symbols, even predicting machines could one day compose music.

"Analysis is the language of the universe." ~ Ada Lovelace

If Ada wrote the first code in 1843, why did it take until the 1980s for computers to reach our homes? There was a massive gap between the "dream" and the "machine" for three main reasons:

1. The Software Before Hardware Problem

Ada's code was for a machine that was never built. The Analytical Engine would have required thousands of precision-engineered gears and been the size of a train.

Funding issues: The British government withdrew support due to skyrocketing costs.

The Precision Gap: Victorian tools couldn't mass-produce thousands of interlocking mechanical parts (brass gears, shafts, and ratchets) with the fraction-of-a-millimeter accuracy needed to prevent the machine from jamming.

2. Hardware Had to Shrink

The room-sized ENIAC of the 1940s used 30 tons of vacuum tubes. It took the invention of the transistor ;(1950s) and the microprocessor (1970s) to fit a computer's "brain" onto a desktop.

3. They Were Difficult to Use

Early programming required physical rewiring and punch cards. Computers lacked a "reason" for home use until the 1980s "explosion" of spreadsheets and video games made them essential tools.

While hardware was shrinking, a Hollywood icon was figuring out how to make machines talk to each other through thin air. Hedy Lamarr spent her nights at an "inventing table" developing a technology called frequency hopping.

The Invention: Frequency Hopping

To help the Allies during WWII, Lamarr realized radio-controlled torpedoes were too easy for Nazis to jam.

The Idea: She teamed up with composer George Antheil to create a signal that would "hop" rapidly across 88 different frequencies.

The Synchronization: Inspired by player pianos, they used synchronized miniature rolls to ensure the transmitter and torpedo switched frequencies at the exact same time.

The Patent: They were granted U.S. Patent 2,292,387 in 1942.

The Rejection and Legacy

The U.S. Navy dismissed her, telling her to "sell war bonds" instead of torpedo designs. It wasn't until the 1950s that the military realized she was right. Today, her "spread spectrum" concept is the foundational technology for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

"The brains of people are more interesting than the looks, I think." ~ Hedy Lamarr

Often called the "Grandmother of COBOL," Grace Hopper was a trailblazing computer scientist and U.S. Navy Rear Admiral who fundamentally changed how humans interact with machines. She moved computing away from cryptic mathematical symbols and toward human-readable language.

From Yale to the Harvard Mark I

When World War II broke out, Hopper didn't just look for a job; she left her position as a math professor at Vassar College to join the Navy. After being initially rejected by the military for being "too old" and "too thin," she successfully joined the Naval Reserve in 1943. She was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University, where she became one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I—a 50-foot-long beast of a machine used to calculate top-secret gunnery tables for the war effort.

The Invention of the First Compiler

In 1952, while working on the UNIVAC I (the first commercial electronic computer), Hopper developed the A-0 System, widely considered the world’s first compiler.

What it did: Before this, programming meant writing tedious strings of binary code (1s and 0s). Her compiler translated high-level mathematical code into machine-readable instructions automatically.

The skepticism: Her colleagues initially believed computers were only capable of arithmetic. Hopper famously persisted, stating she wanted to make computers accessible to people who were "word-oriented" rather than just mathematicians.

The First "Bug"

In 1947, while working on the Harvard Mark II, her team found an actual moth trapped in a relay, causing the machine to fail. She taped the moth into the logbook, jokingly noting it was the "first actual case of bug being found." While she didn't coin the term, she immortalized the concept of "debugging" for every programmer who followed.

"The most dangerous phrase in the language is, 'We've always done it this way." ~ Grace Hopper

Lovelace, Lamarr, and Hopper refused to let the limitations of the current hardware limit the power of their minds. They didn't just invent tools; they invented the future. To every female in STEM today: your "impossible" idea might just be the foundation of the next century.

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Here is a bibliography of key sources and references for both pioneers.

Ada Lovelace

Primary Source:

Lovelace’s 1843 "Notes": These are the extensive appendices she added to her translation of Luigi Menabrea's article on the Analytical Engine, where Note G contains the first algorithm. https://www.claymath.org/online-resources/ada-lovelaces-mathematical-papers

Official Biographies:

Britannica: Ada Lovelace: A comprehensive overview of her life and mathematical contributions. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ada-Lovelace

Biography from Agnes Scott College: Details her education and collaboration with Charles Babbage.

Scholarly Articles:

"Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes'": Published in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, analyzing the technical depth of her work.

"The multifaceted impact of Ada Lovelace in the digital age": A study on her legacy in artificial intelligence and modern computing. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370216300224

Modern Recognition:

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST): A blog detailing her foresight regarding machines processing symbols rather than just numbers. https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/ada-lovelace-worlds-first-computer-programmer-who-predicted-artificial

Hedy Lamarr

U.S. Patent 2,292,387: The original 1942 patent for the "Secret Communication System" using frequency hopping, filed under her legal name, Hedy Kiesler Markey. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/hedy-lamarrs-wwii-invention-helped-shape-modern-tech

Official Biographies:

National Women’s History Museum: Hedy Lamarr: A detailed account of her transition from a "bombshell" actress to a wartime inventor. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/hedy-lamarr

The National WWII Museum: Covers her collaboration with George Antheil and the impact of her invention on modern technology.

Technical Context:

American Physical Society (APS): Explains the physics behind spread-spectrum concept and how her work paved the way for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Jewish Women's Archive: Highlights her patent as the basis for modern secure wireless communications. https://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/11/1942/actress-hedy-lamarr-patents-basis-for-wifi

Further Reading:

Hedy’s Folly https://www.amazon.com/Hedys-Folly-Breakthrough-Inventions-Beautiful/dp/0307742954

by Richard Rhodes: A popular non-fiction book providing deep insight into her engineering mind.

Grace Hopper 

Primary Source: 

“The Education of a Computer” (1952) – Hopper's landmark paper introducing the compiler. history.computer.org

Official Biographies:

Yale University Profile: A look at her PhD years and her legacy at Yale. news.yale.edu

National Women’s History Museum: A biography covering her entry into the Navy and her work at Harvard. www.womenshistory.org

Naval & Military Records:

U.S. Navy Biography: Official records detailing her rise to Rear Admiral. www.history.navy.mil

Computer History Museum: Details on the Harvard Mark I, the machine she was assigned to in 1943. www.computerhistory.org

Technical Context & Legacy:

The Smithsonian (The First Bug): A look at the actual logbook where the moth was taped in 1947. americanhistory.si.edu

IEEE Computer Society: Technical breakdown of her development of COBOL and FLOW-MATIC. www.computer.org