Back

She began to see English math, dominated by Newton, had stagnated behind their continental colleagues, by not adopting Leibnizian calculus.⁠
⁠ She was lucky in her 2nd happy marriage in 1812, to Dr William Somerville (1771–1860), member of Royal Society & devoted supporter of Mary’s studies. ⁠ She began experimenting & published paper on “The magnetic properties of the violet rays of the solar spectrum”, in the Proc of the Royal Society in 1826, 2/

the 1st woman to publish scientific results under her own name.⁠
⁠
Lord Brougham asked her to translate Laplace’s Mécanique Céleste into English. It became a 3 year labour of love, an expanded version explaining the math & additional topics, called The Mechanism of the Heavens. Deemed too technical for Brougham’s audience, Murray published it in 1831. It sold well, made her famous & became standard undergrad textbook at Cambridge until the 1880s. 3/

She was elected an honourary member of Royal Astronomical Society with Caroline Herschel, the 1st 2 women admitted. The Crown granted her a pension of £200 a year.⁠
⁠
Her On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834) sold 15,000 copies in 9 ed establishing her reputation as amongst elite of scientific authors! She noted in 3rd ed that challenges in calculating position of Uranus hinted at existence of undiscovered planets, inspiring Adams who was able to mathematically predict 4/5

existence of Neptune in 1846. In his review Whewell introduced a new term ‘scientist.’ Many claim he praised her as the first #scientist, but in fact he thought she was superior to his utilitarian designation, a “real person of science,” a proper natural philosopher & great writer in contrast with other popularizers of science.⁠

https://minouette.etsy.com/listing/738662780

5/5