Mary Somerville

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Thomas Phillips: Mary Fairfax, Mrs. William Somerville, 1780–1872. Writer on science (1834; Scottish National Gallery , Edinburgh)

Mary Fairfax Greig Somerville (born December 26, 1780 in Jedburgh , † November 28, 1872 in Naples ) was a Scottish astronomer and mathematician who autodidactically acquired her knowledge and became well-known as a science author.

Origin and environment

Mary Fairfax Greig Somerville was the daughter of Admiral Sir William George Fairfax and was born in the rectory in Jedburgh, Scotland. It was her aunt's house, her mother's sister. Her uncle, the sister's husband, was Thomas Somerville (1741-1830), author of an autobiography ( My Own Life and Times ). When her father discovered that his daughter could barely read and write at the age of nine, the only formal schooling she was given was a year in boarding school. Later, only her uncle encouraged her to study. She taught herself Latin and ancient Greek.

From her first marriage (1804) to Samuel Greig, a distant cousin, captain and Russian consul in London, she had two children: the sons Vorontsov and William George. When her first husband died in 1806, the inheritance enabled her to pursue her scientific interests. She maintained close contact with intellectual circles, including Walter Scott , Henry Brougham and John Playfair . Playfair referred Greig to his student William Wallace for their studies . Wallace published, among other things, the journal Mathematical Repository , in whose mathematical prize tasks Greig participated. She received a medal for a solution, the first of many awards.

Il Cimitero degli Inglesi, Naples. Tomb of mary somerville (rear)

William Somerville (1771-1860), whom she married for a second time in 1812 and with whom she had four children, was the son of her uncle and medical inspector of the army and also a dedicated supporter of her scientific work. In 1816 the family moved to London and participated in social and scientific life. In 1835 Somerville received a pension of £ 300 from the government. Mary Somerville moved with her family to Italy in 1838 , where she from then on lived most of her life (first in Florence , later in Naples ). Somerville survived her second husband by twelve years and died in Naples at the age of 91. She is buried there in the Cimitero degli Inglesi .

Professional career and publications

James Rannie Swinton: Mary Somerville, drawing, 1848

Mary Fairfax Greig Somerville grew up with a miserable education. After leaving school, she secretly studied algebra and the Euclid , later Isaac Newton's Principia and Pierre-Simon Laplaces Mécanique céleste , and became one of the most famous self-taught women of her time.

With her knowledge of mathematics and astronomy , she won recognition from authoritative scientists even before she achieved general notoriety. Laplace told her that she was the only woman who understood his works.

In 1831 Mary Fairfax Greig Somerville published a translation of the Mécanique céleste by Laplace under the title The Mechanism of the Heavens in a generally understandable language and form as a commission for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge , which earned her immediate fame. Her style is characterized by clarity and conciseness and is pervaded by great enthusiasm for the topics covered.

In 1835 she and Caroline Herschel became the first two women to join the Royal Astronomical Society . In 1869 she was awarded the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (which only accepted women as members from 1913), and she was accepted into the American Philosophical Society . Even Alexander von Humboldt corresponded with Somerville, citing it as one of the few female scientists in his major work cosmos .

The Personal Recollections of Mary Somerville , written by her daughter Martha Somerville in 1873, offer a retrospective of the literary and scientific societies of their time, which is as interesting as the portrayal of the personality of those who remember it.

After Mary Fairfax Greig Somerville were named: Somerville College in Oxford, Somerville Island (54 ° 44'N 130 ° 17'W) on the coast of British Columbia near the border with Alaska and the asteroid (5771) Somerville (since 1995) and a moon crater .

Fonts

Illustration of a bust of Somerville from the Personal Recollections (1874)

Honor

In the Horn-Lehe district of Bremen , in the so-called Technology Park, a street was named after Mary Somerville.

literature

  • Robyn Arianrhod: Seduced by Logic. Émilie du Châtelet , Mary Somerville and the Newtonian Revolution. Oxford University Press , Oxford 2012 (therein: Somerville and the Leibniz notation , pp. 161–175).
  • Gabriella Bernardi: The unforgotten sisters. Female astronomers and scientists before Caroline Herschel. Springer, Chichester 2016, ISBN 978-3-319-26125-6 .
  • Kathryn A. Neeley: Mary Somerville. Science, Illumination, and the Female Mind . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001, ISBN 0521626722 .
  • Annette Pohlke: “Princess of Parallelograms” meets “Queen of Science”. Mary Somerville as a teacher, friend, role model. In: Sybille Krämer (Ed.): Ada Lovelace . The pioneer of computer technology and her successors . Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn 2015, ISBN 978-3-7705-5986-2 , pp. 35–51.
  • Martha Somerville: Personal Recollections, From Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville . Roberts Brothers, Boston 1874 ( digitized ). Reprint at AMS Press, 1996, ISBN 0-404-56837-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Daria Apushkinskaya: Women in Mathematics. WS 2014/2015. Lesson 5. In: math.uni-sb.de. P. 13, accessed on August 2, 2017 (PDF; 457 kB).
  2. ↑ M. Oughton: Mary Somerville, 1780-1872 . In: TW Freeman, M. Oughton, P. Pinchemel (Eds.): Geographers: biobibliographical studies . tape 2 . Mansell, London / New York 1978, p. 109-111 .
  3. ↑ Petra Werner: Heaven and Earth. Alexander von Humboldt us his cosmos. Academy, Berlin 2004, p. 292 .
  4. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 25444
personal data
SURNAME Somerville, Mary
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Somerville Fairfax, Mary; Fairfax Somerville, Mary; Fairfax Greig Somerville, Mary
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish astronomer and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH December 26, 1780
PLACE OF BIRTH Jedburgh
DATE OF DEATH November 28, 1872
Place of death Naples