Science Stories - Mary Somerville, pioneer of popular science writing

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mary Somerville was a self-taught genius who wrote best-selling books translating, explaining and drawing together different scientific fields and who was named the nineteenth century's "queen of science". Born Mary Fairfax in 1780, she was an unlikely scientific hero. Her parents and her first husband did not support her scientific pursuits and it was only when she became a widow at 28 with two small children that she began to do novel mathematics. With her second husband, William Somerville, she entered the intellectual life of the times in Edinburgh and London and met all the great scientific thinkers. Naomi Alderman tells the story of Mary Somerville's long life - she lived till she was 92. She discusses how Mary came to be a writer about science with her biographer, Professor Kathryn Neeley of the University of Virginia, and the state of popular science writing books with writer Jon Turney. Main Image: Mary Fairfax, Mrs William Somerville, 1780 - 1872. Writer on science, by Thomas Phillips, 1834. Oil on canvas. (Photo by National Galleries Of Scotland / Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.1	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really. Comedy is a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know, I also know that comedy is really
0:24.3	subjective and everyone has different tastes. So we've got a huge range of comedy on offer from
0:29.8	satire to silly, shocking to soothing, profound to just general pratting about.
0:35.0	So if you fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:40.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio podcasts.
0:45.0	What would it take for someone today to write a book that encompassed all known science?
0:54.0	How would it even be possible to construct a work
0:57.4	that would let anyone with school-level maths
1:00.4	understand the most complicated parts of particle physics, chemistry? and what untold un
1:08.7	untold parts of particle physics chemistry and astronomy and
1:07.0	and what untold discoveries might be made
1:11.0	if someone could unify so many fields of knowledge allowing experts to
1:16.6	understand each other. This is the story of Mary Somerville, the self-taught genius whose best-selling books,
1:25.2	translating, explaining and drawing together different scientific fields,
1:30.4	had her named the 19th century's Queen of Science. Mary Somerville, born Mary Fairfax in 1780, was an unlikely scientific hero.
1:50.0	Her parents weren't obviously supportive of her interests.
1:54.0	Her father was a Navy officer who spent long years away at sea,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.