Seduced by Logic: Émilie Du Châtelet, Mary Somerville and the Newtonian Revolution

As Arianrhod (honorary research associate, Sch. of Mathematical Sciences, Monash Univ., Melbourne; Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World through the Language of Mathematics) tells it, women throughout history have found ways around patriarchal society's limitations in order to pursue knowledge, and several have made notable contributions to science in the process. Among these are 18th-century Frenchwoman Émilie du Châtelet and 19th-century Scot Mary Somerville, whose writings (notably du Châtelet's French translation of Isaac Newton's Principia and Somerville's English translation of Pierre-Simon Laplace's Mécanique Céleste, both with commentary) advanced the general understanding of Newtonian science. Their stories have largely been subsumed by those of their male counterparts (e.g., Johann Bernoulli, Leonhard Euler, Michael Faraday), so this account serves as a refreshing reminder that women in science are not a recent phenomenon. Arianrhod presents their stories from youth through death in the context of the scientific, political, and social atmospheres of their respective times. Each of these remarkable women was famous in contemporary scientific circles and deserves to be so again.