Before 1834, there was no word “scientist.” Practitioners of different natural philosophies were called astronomers, chemists, naturalists, or simply philosophers. When William Whewell coined the term “scientist,” he modeled it on “artist” and explicitly referenced Mary Somerville as the kind of person who needed such a word. She was not merely an astronomer or mathematician but someone who synthesized all sciences into unified understanding. The very word we use today exists partly because of her.
Mary Somerville translated the most advanced mathematics of her era into accessible prose, conducted original research in physical science, and maintained correspondence with virtually every major scientist of the nineteenth century. When she died at 91, she was revising a mathematics paper. Her life demonstrates that intellectual achievement requires not just talent but extraordinary persistence against formidable obstacles.
An Unlikely Education
Born Mary Fairfax in 1780 in Scotland, she received minimal formal education. Like most girls of her era, she was taught little beyond reading, writing, and needlework. Her father, a naval officer, saw no need for daughters to learn mathematics or science. Her mother agreed.
Somerville’s mathematical awakening came accidentally. At age thirteen, she noticed strange symbols in a women’s magazine puzzle and learned they were called “algebra.” Curious, she obtained copies of Euclid’s Elements and began teaching herself geometry and algebra in secret, studying by candlelight after the household slept.
Obstacles and Persistence
When her parents discovered her studies, they confiscated her candles, fearing mathematics would damage her health or make her unmarriageable. Somerville had already memorized the first six books of Euclid and continued working problems mentally in the dark. This pattern of persistence against opposition would characterize her entire career.
Her first marriage, at age 24, was unhappy but provided financial independence when her husband died three years later. Her second marriage, to William Somerville in 1812, proved transformative. William actively encouraged her studies, helped obtain books and instruments, and facilitated her entry into scientific circles otherwise closed to women.
The Connection of the Physical Sciences
Somerville’s scientific career began in earnest when she translated Pierre-Simon Laplace’s Mecanique Celeste, the most advanced work on celestial mechanics then existing. Rather than merely translating, she expanded the work with explanatory notes that made the difficult mathematics accessible to readers without Laplace’s technical background.
Published in 1831 as “The Mechanism of the Heavens,” her translation was immediately adopted as a textbook at Cambridge. Laplace himself reportedly said that Somerville was the only woman who understood his work, though this perhaps underestimated other mathematicians.
A New Kind of Science Writing
Her masterpiece followed in 1834: “On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences.” This work synthesized astronomy, physics, meteorology, and geography into a unified picture of nature. Rather than treating sciences as separate disciplines, Somerville showed how they interconnected, how discoveries in one field illuminated others.
The book went through ten editions during her lifetime, continually updated with the latest discoveries. It influenced a generation of scientists, including the young James Clerk Maxwell, who would later unify electricity and magnetism following Somerville’s synthetic approach.
Scientific Contributions
Beyond translation and synthesis, Somerville conducted original research. She experimented with the magnetizing effects of sunlight, investigating whether light could induce magnetic properties in materials. Though her specific conclusions were later superseded, her experimental methodology was rigorous and her questions prescient.
Physical Geography
In 1848, she published “Physical Geography,” a comprehensive treatment of Earth’s physical features, climate, and natural phenomena. The work was widely used as a textbook and remained in print for decades. She followed this with “Molecular and Microscopic Science” in 1869, written when she was 89 years old.
Her ability to synthesize vast amounts of information across multiple disciplines was remarkable. She corresponded with specialists in every field, incorporating their latest findings into comprehensive works that no specialist could have written.
Recognition and Honors
Despite being barred from universities and scientific societies by her gender, Somerville received significant recognition. The Royal Astronomical Society elected her an honorary member in 1835, along with Caroline Herschel, the first women so honored. The Royal Geographical Society followed decades later.
Lasting Influence
Somerville College at Oxford, founded in 1879, bears her name, chosen to represent women’s intellectual capabilities. The college has educated numerous distinguished women, including Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi. The association of Somerville’s name with women’s education continues her legacy of expanding intellectual opportunities.
She also mentored younger women in science, most notably Ada Lovelace, whom she introduced to Charles Babbage. The connection between Somerville’s mathematical mentorship and Lovelace’s later work on computing shows how networks of support enable scientific achievement.
A Life of Learning
Somerville lived to 91, remaining intellectually active throughout. She revised her books continuously, keeping current with scientific developments. In her final years, she was working on quaternions, the advanced algebra that would later prove essential to physics and computer graphics.
“Age has not abated my zeal for the emancipation of my sex from the unreasonable prejudice too prevalent in Great Britain against a literary and scientific education for women,” she wrote at 89. Her life demonstrated that women could master the most advanced science of their era given opportunity and determination.
Personal Reflections
Her autobiography, published posthumously, provides insight into how she balanced domestic responsibilities with scientific work. She wrote of calculating orbits while nursing children, of hiding mathematical papers beneath needlework when visitors arrived. These accommodations to social expectations, while frustrating, did not prevent achievement.
The Synthetic Vision
What distinguished Somerville was not mastery of any single field but her ability to see connections across all sciences. In an era of increasing specialization, she insisted that natural phenomena formed an interconnected whole. Light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and gravity were not separate forces but aspects of unified natural law.
This vision influenced later unification efforts. Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory, Einstein’s relativity, and modern attempts at “theories of everything” all share Somerville’s conviction that nature’s laws are fundamentally connected. Her synthetic approach, developed through decades of reading across every scientific discipline, anticipated the interdisciplinary science that would characterize the twentieth century.
Exploring Scientific History
Somerville’s work built on foundations established over centuries. Euclid’s Elements, which she taught herself as a teenager, provided the geometric foundations underlying all physical science. Newton’s Principia, which Laplace’s work extended, established the mathematical physics Somerville translated and explained.
The tradition of clear scientific communication she exemplified continues. Einstein’s Relativity represents another effort to make advanced physics accessible to general readers, following the path Somerville pioneered.
For those interested in the scientists whose work Somerville synthesized and explained, Portraying Science presents portraits and biographies of the figures who shaped modern understanding of nature.
Legacy for Women in Science
Somerville’s achievements challenged assumptions about women’s intellectual capabilities. She mastered the most difficult mathematics of her era, corresponded as an equal with the leading scientists of Europe, and produced works adopted as university textbooks at institutions that would not admit her as a student.
Her example inspired later generations. The Women on the Moon posters celebrate scientists including Somerville whose names appear on lunar craters, a fitting tribute for someone whose astronomical work helped map the heavens.
Mary Somerville helped create the modern conception of science as a unified endeavor. Her translations made advanced mathematics accessible. Her syntheses showed how different sciences illuminated each other. Her very existence helped inspire the word “scientist” to describe practitioners of this unified approach to understanding nature.
Working without formal education, institutional position, or access to the venues where science was conducted, she achieved recognition that male contemporaries with every advantage often failed to match. Her persistence against obstacles, maintained from adolescence to her nineties, exemplifies the determination required for scientific achievement in any era.
That we call researchers “scientists” at all reflects in part Somerville’s demonstration that one person could master multiple natural philosophies and synthesize them into coherent understanding. Her legacy persists not just in college names and crater designations but in the very language we use to describe scientific work.
No products in the cart. 