大象传媒

Mary Somerville, born Mary Fairfax in 1780, wrote best-selling books translating, explaining and drawing together different scientific fields. She was an unlikely science hero whose parents and first husband did not support her scientific pursuits. Mary Somerville's biographer, Prof Kathryn Neeley of the University of Virginia, explains how Mary came to be a science writer.

(Image: Mary Somerville portrait by Thomas Phillips, 1834. Credit: Getty Images.)