Somerville, Mary Fairfax (1780-1872), was a pioneering British scientist, mathematician, and writer. Somerville’s ability to clearly explain scientific and mathematic topics helped to popularize scientific ideas. Her books were used in university science courses for more than half a century.
In 1826, Somerville had her first paper published in Philosophical Transactions, a journal of the Royal Society. The paper concerned the magnetizing effects of sunlight. At the time, women were not allowed to attend meetings of the Royal Society, so Somerville’s second husband, William Somerville, presented the paper. Mary Somerville’s experiments and writing style were widely praised, although the conclusions of the paper were later shown to be incorrect.
In 1831, Somerville’s first book, The Mechanism of the Heavens, was published. The book explained to a wider audience the concepts in the two most important astronomy texts of the time: the Marquis de Laplace’s Celestial Mechanics and Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia. Somerville’s book met with critical acclaim. She wrote three other popular science books: On the Connection of the Physical Sciences (1834), Physical Geography (1848), and On Molecular and Microscopic Science (1869). Her autobiography, Personal Recollections from Early Life to Old Age of Mary Somerville, was published in 1873, a year after her death.
Somerville received many awards and honors for her scientific writing. A bust of Somerville was installed in the Great Hall of the Royal Society in London. In 1835, she and the German-born English astronomer Caroline Herschel became the first female honorary fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society. Somerville was elected to numerous regional science societies in Europe and the United States. One of the first female colleges at Oxford University was named in her honor.
In a later edition of On the Connection of the Physical Sciences, Mary Somerville speculated that an eighth planet might be disrupting the orbit of Uranus. This speculation inspired the British mathematician and astronomer John Couch Adams to predict the location of the eighth planet using mathematics. The prediction was confirmed in 1846 with the discovery of Neptune. Somerville also tutored the English noble Ada Lovelace in mathematics. Lovelace went on to write the first published computer program and to make other contributions to computer science.
Mary Fairfax was born in Jedburgh, Scotland, southeast of Edinburgh, on Dec. 26, 1780. She attended boarding school for one year, becoming interested in math and science after returning home. Her parents discouraged her from studying such subjects, which were thought inappropriate for women. In 1804, Fairfax married her cousin Samuel Greig and moved to London. Greig died three years later, leaving her with enough money to pursue her studies. She returned to Scotland and befriended scientists and intellectuals there. In 1812, she married William, another cousin, who was more supportive of her interest in the sciences. The couple moved to Italy in 1838. Mary Somerville died on Nov. 29, 1872, in Naples.
