well, this is where the nineteenth century mathematician ada lovelace comes in.d some of her work on this famous bridge problem and its impossibility. here it is — a newly discovered scribble from the 1840s, apparently drawn in a conversation between ada lovelace and charles babbage — who is seen as the nineteenth century father of computing. as you might be able to see here — they were playing with the bridge problem. sketching it out. and they were working on the rules. 1,3,5 bridges here, versus two oi’ foui’. now the contention of the new book on ada lovelace is that this was an example of algorithmic thinking. an algorithm simply being a sequence of rules. and because algorithms are the basis of computer programmes, the book is called ada lovelace: the making of a computer scientist. one of the authors is ursula martin, a computer scientist and a professor in the maths institute at oxford, and the person who discovered the early victorian doodles in the bodleian library at oxford. very good evening to you. the connection between those scribbles and computing

and how nineteenth century mathematician ada lovelace was a pioneer of computer science. hello. but we reached a jaw—dropping moment today — a russian ambassador arguing that his country would shoot down missiles aimed at syria, and even retaliate against launch sites if there was an attack. then president trump retorted on twitter, "get ready russia because they'll be coming! nice and new and smart". it sounds rather like the way social media is said to have amplified gang conflict in london, apparently contributing to the rise in knife attacks. except this is russia and america. it was only back in 2009 that a then new president obama wanted to press the reset button on the relationship with russia. then president trump promised "we're going to have a great relationship with putin and russia." well, not quite. all news leads to russia: the skripals, facebook and fake news, and above all, syria. and it's syria which is forcing a choice on the us and its allies, on how to deal with putin and his. mark urban is with me. mark, on syria, where are we this evening? well we had that