a simple woman with focus

If ever there were an unlikely candidate for scientific greatness.. it would have been Mary Somerville. 

She won awards in mathematics.. learned several languages.. how to paint and play the piano.. and was the first women elected to the Royal Astronomical Society.

 

born into a poor Scottish family.. when higher education was not seen as proper for a lady.. she faced even larger obstacles.. with household duties and expectations taking precedence over any kind of self-education.

despite those obstacles, Somerville’s accomplishments were vast. 

 

When young.. she was put to bed and denied a candle for reading.. she would mentally work through mathematics.. While still breastfeeding her child.. she devoted “an hour of study to that science” every morning. 

Even during her greatest achievement, the translation and expansion of Laplace’s Traité de mécanique céleste, she had to carry out all the household duties of raising children, cooking, and cleaning.