Mathematics

When 15-year old Mary Fairfax developed a passion for studying mathematics in the late 1780’s, her parents were not pleased. This consuming interest was out of character for the young girl who had, a few years earlier, left a prestigious boarding school after only twelve months of formal education. Mary had felt confined in the rigid, rule-laden environment and preferred to return to the freedom of exploring the coastline of her small town of Burntisland, Scotland.

But Mary’s life changed the day she noticed algebraic symbols in a fashion magazine at a friend’s house. Her unrelenting obsession with math led her parents to confiscate the candles she used to read at night. Still, she taught herself Latin in order to read and memorize six books by Euclid, the Greek mathematician. In bed, Mary spent hours solving math equations in her head. To ease her parents’ concern; she learned the homemaking skills and social graces important for young women of her day.

Mary attempted to continue her studies of higher math, physical astronomy and navigation during her marriage to Admiral Sir Samuel Grieg; but he disapproved. When he died after three years of marriage, Mary openly pursued her passion. She received a Silver Award for solutions submitted for math contests published by a mathematics journal. Her second marriage to William Somerville, a surgeon who encouraged her studies, allowed her to travel and meet well-respected mathematicians and scientists of the day. Mary Fairfax Somerville, who birthed six children, broadened her studies and became widely respected as she began submitting original research papers.

In 1827, with little formal education, Mary Somerville was asked to translate Pierre Laplace’s comprehensive work about mathematical gravity into layperson’s English. When the Mechanism of the Heavens was completed in 1831, it was an astounding sales success and was a significant college textbook for a hundred years. Mary published a well-received dissertation on it a year later. And in 1833, she became one of two women to be named as the first honorary members of the Royal Astronomical Society.

In 1834, Mary Somerville surpassed the success of her first publication with The Connection of the Physical Sciences, which was translated into both French and German. Her finest original work, Physical Geography, took ten years to write, and was the first geography textbook to be written in English. The self-taught “Queen of 19th Century Science” distinguished herself as a mathematician, scientist and writer when it was difficult for women to achieve these distinctions. She published other works and was honored with numerous awards. Somerville College, at Oxford University, was named in her honor and is a testament to her lifelong intellectual and social achievements. Her love of mathematics lives on as inspiration to those who dare to push forward against all odds.

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