Meyer, Michal (Author)
Mary Somerville (1780-1872) established her public reputation as a mathematician in Britain and the United States in the early 1830s with the publication of Mechanism of the Heavens (1831). From her position as a member of elite scientific circles, Somerville launched into writing about the sciences for an educated audience at a time when science was considered part of the broader culture. Taken together, her books, On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834), Physical Geography (1848), and On Molecular and Microscopic Science (1869) covered a broad scientific terrain. Somerville kept her work up to date with the help of a network of scientific friends and acquaintances. This dissertation examines how Somerville's science incorporated and reflected cultural assumptions and issues of the day, from fears about social stability to the role of the empire, from the status of animals to political economy. This science as communication also carried aesthetic and religious values. In Mechanism of the Heavens, Somerville coated Pierre-Simon Laplace's celestial mechanics with natural theology, thus making Newton's legacy safe for a British audience worried by French radicalism. Physical Geography was a book made for empire that incorporated the knowledge of those who were expanding the empire's physical boundaries as well as its knowledge boundaries. Physical Geography also showcased how science, commerce, and nature were connected against the backdrop of empire. Underlying much of Somerville's work was her faith in progress, which was guaranteed by the same determinism that kept the planets on their course, which were in turn part of the law-like processes of nature guaranteed by God.
...MoreDescription Cited in ProQuest Diss. & Thes. : doc. no. 3416707.
Article
Brigitte Stenhouse;
(2020)
Mary Somerville's Early Contributions to the Circulation of Differential Calculus
(/isis/citation/CBB260946769/)
Thesis
Boswell, Michelle Suzanne Lang;
(2014)
Beautiful Science: Victorian Women's Scientific Poetry and Prose
(/isis/citation/CBB001567563/)
Thesis
Healy, Michele;
(2004)
The Cachet of the “Invisible” Translator: Englishwomen Translating Science (1650--1850)
(/isis/citation/CBB001560840/)
Book
Chapman, Allan;
(2004)
Mary Somerville and the World of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000651616/)
Book
Neeley, Kathryn A.;
(2001)
Mary Somerville: Science, illumination, and the female mind
(/isis/citation/CBB000330760/)
Book
Shelly M. Jones;
(2019)
Women Who Count: Honoring African American Women Mathematicians
(/isis/citation/CBB186029770/)
Book
Audin, Michèle;
(2011)
Remembering Sofya Kovalevskaya
(/isis/citation/CBB001213661/)
Article
Craik, Alex D. D.;
(2013)
In Search of Thomas Knight: Part 2
(/isis/citation/CBB001213291/)
Book
Senechal, Marjorie;
(2013)
I Died for Beauty: Dorothy Wrinch and the Cultures of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB001213181/)
Article
Ellen Abrams;
(2020)
“Indebted to No One”: Grounding and Gendering the Self-Made Mathematician
(/isis/citation/CBB577423770/)
Article
Brock, Claire;
(2006)
The Public Worth of Mary Somerville
(/isis/citation/CBB000651498/)
Book
Arianrhod, Robyn;
(2012)
Seduced by Logic: Émilie Du Châtelet, Mary Somerville, and the Newtonian Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001421137/)
Article
Hunter, T. Russell;
(2012)
Making a Theist out of Darwin: Asa Gray's Post-Darwinian Natural Theology
(/isis/citation/CBB001250446/)
Book
Emling, Shelley;
(2009)
The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World
(/isis/citation/CBB001031283/)
Article
William Rone Vieira;
(2022)
O trabalho e as contribuições de Caroline Herschel na Astronomia
(/isis/citation/CBB309964528/)
Book
Bellanca, Mary Ellen;
(2007)
Daybooks of Discovery: Nature Diaries in Britain, 1770--1870
(/isis/citation/CBB001030155/)
Book
Tom Sharpe;
(2021)
The Fossil Woman: A Life of Mary Anning
(/isis/citation/CBB900889395/)
Article
Fara, Patricia;
(2008)
Mary Somerville: A Scientist and Her Ship
(/isis/citation/CBB000932159/)
Book
Edward C. Atwater;
(2016)
Women Medical Doctors in the United States Before the Civil War: A Biographical Dictionary
(/isis/citation/CBB861872295/)
Article
Taylor, Kenneth L.;
(2013)
A Peculiarly Personal Encyclopedia: What Desmarest's GéoGraphie-Physique Tells Us About His Life and Work
(/isis/citation/CBB001212347/)
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