Mary Somerville (1780–1872) would have been a remarkable womanin any age, but as an acknowledged leading mathematician andastronomer at a time when the education of most women was extremelyrestricted, her achievement was extraordinary. Laplace famouslytold her that 'there have been only three women who have understoodme. These are yourself, Mrs Somerville, Caroline Herschel and a MrsGreig of whom I know nothing.' Mary Somerville was in fact MrsGreig. After (as she herself said) translating Laplace's work 'fromalgebra into common language', she wrote On the Connexion of thePhysical Sciences (1834), also reissued in this series. Her nextbook, the two-volume Physical Geography (1848), was a synthesis ofgeography, geology, botany, astronomy and zoology, drawing on themost recent discoveries in all these fields to present an overviewof current understanding of the natural world and the Earth's placein the universe.
