The Ascent of Mary Somerville in 19th Century Society
This biography traces the life and work of Mary Fairfax Somerville, whose extraordinary mathematical talent only came to light through fortuitous circumstances. Barely taught to read and write as a child, all the science she learned and mastered was self
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The Ascent of Mary Somerville in 19th Century Society ELISABETTA STRICKLAND
Springer Biographies
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13617
Elisabetta Strickland
The Ascent of Mary Somerville in 19th Century Society
123
Elisabetta Strickland Università di Roma Tor Vergata Roma Italy
ISSN 2365-0613 Springer Biographies ISBN 978-3-319-49192-9 DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49193-6
ISSN 2365-0621
(electronic)
ISBN 978-3-319-49193-6
(eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957160 © Springer International Publishing AG 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly Henri Bergson
To Guglielmo, Mary Jane, and Sarah
Preface
My interest in Mary Somerville began in 2011, when I was invited to give a talk on women mathematicians in history at a meeting on “Mathematics and Culture” held in Venice. This represented a challenging task to me, as I co-founded in 2009 a Gender Interuniversity Observatory (GIO) based in the four state universities in Rome, “Sapienza”, “Tor Vergata”, “Roma TRE”, and the “Università del Foro Italico”, and among the goals of the observatory, there has been from the very beginning much research on excellent women in culture, so making a significant list of outstanding ladies in mathematics seemed to me quite appealing. My choice involved Hypathia, Émilie de Breteuil, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Sonya Kovalevsky, Sophie Germain, Mary Somerville, and Emmy Noether. Among these scientists, the only one I had never heard of before was Mary Somerville, maybe because there is no Somerville’s theorem, or because for a long time after her death she had been somehow left aside, even by her fellow citizens; but whe
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