birth: 1758

death: 1836

background/early life:

• she received formal education at a christian community

• got married when she was 13 to a scientist nobleman named Antione Lavoisier

• they settled in Paris, and her husband created a chemistry lab

• she was able to translate multiple texts from many different chemists

later life:

• after her husband was executed, while losing money, she published his works and secured his legacy in the field of chemistry

• she wrote many entries in notebooks explaining the methods and results of multiple chemistry experiments

• drew illustrations of the procedures

• when she did a translation on the Phlogiston, she convinced her (late) husband the information was incorrect, which later led to the study of combustion and the discoveries on oxygen

• she helped in her husband’s book which showed a unified view of chemistry

• this book was a huge progression which had a lot of new ideas, like the conservation of mass

• right before her death, she collected her husband’s notebooks, which are now sitting at Cornell University

sources:

• https://www.chemistryworld.com/culture/marie-anne-paulze-lavoisier-the-invisible-assistant/4014701.article

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Anne_Paulze_Lavoisier

(April 2, 1647 - January 13, 1717)

Occupation:

• Entomologist (one who studies insects)

• Artist

Background:

• Born and raised in Germany

• Father’s apprentice as an artist, learning to make full-color engravings

• 1670 - moved to Nuremberg with her husband

• Merian had 2 daughters

• Soon divorced her husband to join radical Christian community

Achievements:

• Merian published her first illustrated book about caterpillars, which represented an important economic issue

• Set up an all female business, producing flower-painted fabric

• Has plants, butterflies, and beetles named after her

• Taught other women to paint and draw

Legacy:

• One of the earliest European naturalists to directly document observations on insects

• Provided the world with a better understanding  of insects, butterflies, and beetles

• Although she was plagued by malaria, Merian published her most significant book in 1705, the lavishly illustrated Insects of Surinam, which established her international reputation

• First woman to fund her own excursion without the assistance of a male

Hardships:

• Had brothers who were allowed to travel around Europe for an artistic education, however she wasn’t given this freedom 

• Reason why she studied insects - she stayed in her backyard and observed (accessible area for her)

• Developed malaria because of the environment she worked in

• Her Christian community did not value education and scientific exploration 

Sources:

Newscientist: Maria-Sibylla-Merian 

National Museum of Women in the Arts 

wams.nyhistory.org 

Nehal Sen, Pia Shah, Somya Daga, Shika Surapaneni

• Caroline Herschel was born in Hanover, Great Britain 1750. 

• Her mother raised her very traditionally. Making her cook clean and engage in chores that we’re very rigorous.

• When her brother (William) became an organist she followed him against her mothers wishes. She trained as a soloist singer for many years.

• Eventually William picked up a new passion, Astrology. Her brother strictly tutored her in Mathematics and English.  

Struggles And challenges Faced

• Caroline was not encouraged by her mother. When she decided to follow her brother her mother outcasted her and made her someone unwelcome in her own family.

• Another challenge was that she lacked the tools and resources. To make scientific discovery tools are extremely difficult specific tools are needed. Lacking these resources can double or even triple the difficulty.

• Caroline was mistreated by many in her field. Discredited just for being a woman.

Achievements

• Caroline Herschel was the first woman to discover a comet. Being so well recognized she became the First Lady to receive a full scientific salary from King George III. 

• She performed the calculations needed to convert numbers on a dial into locations on a map. Thanks to Herschel the British catalogue was up to date. 

• Thanks to Herschel’s accomplishments we are able to understand astronomy and history very well. Herschel is one of the most important women in history and will continue to be.

Sources

• https://www.newscientist.com/people/caroline-herschel/

• https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/caroline-herschel-first-paid-female-astronomer#:~:text=Caroline%20Lucretia%20Herschel%20was%20born,than%20help%20run%20the%20household.

Background:

• Born on December 14, 1631

• Died on February 23, 1679 at age 48

• Focused on a heavily gynocentric concerns and patterns within society

• Posthumous daughter of Sir Heneage Finch and Lady Elizabeth Cradock

• Was given lessons by University of Cambridge’s Henry More, who knew her brother

• Anne Conway married rich, to Edward, Third Viscount Conway

• Her friend Van Helmet introduced her to kabbalistic thought and Quakerism which were resultant in an alternative method of thought

Achievements:

• Wrote and published a treatise of philosophy

• The treatise translates to “The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy” and it was a work of Platonist metaphysics

• The framework that she suggests is a hierarchy of “species” in which she established three categories; God is the highest, Christ is in the middle and it links the people 

• She wrote that God can communicate with its creations through a “middle nature” such as Christ as a sort of intermediary

• Conway also denied the concept of hell as she argued that such an idea is immoral and unjust

• In addition, her treatise framed God as perfect and the reason for existence

Legacy:

• Thinking influenced Christian theologian named Origen

• The philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was stated before his time by Conway

• Conway’s work was anonymously published and shows how she was deeply neglected as a woman during the Enlightenment

• Belief system was a theocracy which stated there was no punishment for suffering during life and believes that all will gain salvation

• Philosophy is very enlightened as she opposes the thinking of Thomas Hobbes ideas of a strong authority and authoritarian monarchical government

• Disagreed with Spinoza because Spinoza stated that anything good or bad is independent of human desires, but rather is a manifestation of god as in immaterial and corporal substance

Link:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conway/

Name: Maragaret Cavendish

“to write with a pen rather than to work with a needle”

Biography:

• Born in 1623, dead in December of 1673

• Born near Colchester, United Kingdom

• Came from a wealthy family and had basic education (was taught to read and write)

• Was a maid of honor to Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles l

• Became the Duchess of Newcastle after marriage

• Wife of Royalist commander William Cavendish

Ideas:

• She believed that people should learn about science by using instincts rather than devices

• Said nature has a system in which they perplexedly work with one another; like a clock

• Believed that gender inequality was caused by the imbalance of sexes and the lack of opportunities for women

• Argued that women are more superior to men

Importance:

• Prolific female author, natural philosopher, poet, scientist, and playwright of the 17th century

• Wrote books about equality and philosophy under HER name (didn’t hide the fact that she’s a woman)

• Introduced Panpsychism (all living things have a mind)

Achievements:

• She wrote many books while in exile

• Wrote about a wide variety of topics

• Most of her works are about natural philosophy

• Seen as a controversial thinker of her time, as she argued against the modern ways of science

• First women to attend the Royal Society

• Was known as the “first feminist scientist”

Hardships:

• Not many people bothered to read her works

• She wasn’t educated in math, history, or philosophy

• Joined the queens court which caused her exile

• Men criticized her work to be unorganized and verbose

• Widely referred to as “Mad Madge” (people thought she was ridiculous)

Sources:

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/women-in-history/margaret-cavendish/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/margaret-cavendish

https://iep.utm.edu/margaret-cavendish/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/margaret-cavendish/

(1776 - 1831)

• Born 1776 April 1, born In Paris France

• died 1831 June 27, died in Paris France

• French mathematician

• Full name is Marie - Sophie Germain 

Backgrounds

• Sophie was born during the beginning of the American Revolution 

• Sophie was born in a middle class family

• She often disobeyed her parents and read books from her fathers library and went to extents of sneaking them at night to keep learning mathematics 

• Sophie has two sisters, her older sister Marie-Madeleine Germain (born 29 May 1770) and her younger sister was Angélique-Ambroise Germain (born 1779). 

Achievements:

• She invented the elasticity theory

• She helped make the Eiffel Tower with her work on elasticity and number theory

• She made important contributions to number theory 

•  She was the first woman to win a math award from Frances academy of science

• She created the concepts of Germain numbers

• She proved the first case of Fermat's Last Theorem

     Hardships:

• She was born In a time of mass instability with the American and French Revolution happening in her time. 

• She lived through the Napoleonic wars.

• Her parents often discouraged her study of mathematics 

• She had a limited access to education since she was a woman no education was there 

• In that era the world was controlled by men

• She struggled for recognition in a male dominated society 

• Her work wasn’t noticed till long after her death 

Sources 

https://mathwomen.agnesscott.org/women/germain.htm

https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Germain/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sophie-Germain

https://www.elcohetealaluna.com/sophie-germain/

https://www.gcsu.edu/sites/files/page-assets/node-808/attachments/kagele.p

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sophie-Germainhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Germain

Group members

Zoya chaudhry,Anish Senthilkumar,Akshaye Pentela, Dhanvin k

Challa 

Bhavesh Rayavarapu, Ronit Bhakat, Javin Antony, Dev Amin

Background Info

- Emilie Du Chātelet was born in Paris on December 17 in the year 1706

- Married in 1725 to Marquis Florent-Claude de Châtelet-Lomont

- They had 3 children together however the second child died a year after birth

- In 1733 she met Voltaire and became friends they built a lab in her husband’s estate

- She became pregnant at the age 42 with the child of her lover Jean-François de Saint-Lambert, and gave birth on September 4th 1749

- She died on September 10th 1749, 6 days after giving birth

Obstacles

-Rejected from many academic institutions

-Rejected from other various locations like the King’s Library

-Dressed as a men to gain access to certain places

-Received less credit in many of her projects

-Had to do a lot of projects in secrecy

-Could collaborate or have people check her projects

-Had to balance her personal life with her academic life as a noblewoman.

-Had many love affairs

Achievements.

-One of her most important scientific contribution was the explanation of Newton’s concepts energy and energy conservation.

-Created a research hub in Corey, France.

-Published Institutions de Physique(The Foundations of Physics) which was seen as in the modern day a textbook for her son.

-In the second edition( Institution Physique) she supplied the meta-physical basis for Newtonian physics she had long accepted.

-One her chapters in her lost book(Eléments de la philosophie de Newton) is in the Russia’s National. Library in St. Petersburg housed among Voltaire’s papers

-Her translation is still the leading French translation of Newton’s book(Newton’s Principia). 

-Was great mathematician. 

-Could speak 6 languages.

-Influenced European thinkers for decades to come

Sources

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emilie-du-chatelet/ 

APS125

https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2008/12/emilie-du-chatelet# 

Physics World: https://physicsworld.com/a/emilie-du-chtelet-the-genius-without-a-beard/

^Background

• ^{Born December 26, 1780 in Jedburgh Scotland}

• ^{British science writer}

• ^{Dubbed the “Queen of Science”}

• ^{Died in 1868 in Italy}

^{Early Life}

• ^{Grew up in poverty}

• ^{Spent large chunks of time working around the house}

• ^{Grew up with little to no education}

• ^{Was taught to read, but not to write, by her mother}

• ^{Mary educated her through her family libraries, and took an interest in mathematics}

^{First ventures into the science world}

• ^{She married her cousin Samuel Grieg in 1804, who was not fond of her love of studying mathematics}

• ^{After Grieg’s passing away, she devoted herself to studying math before marrying another one of her cousins, William Somerville in, 1812}

• ^{William Somerville fully supported her science interests, and was more than happy to hop from country to country in Europe}

• ^{Somerville then began to study botany and geology, and moved to London to further pursue these interests}

• ^{She met many famous astronomers and physicists who inspired her to publish her first appear in 1826”On the Magnetizing Power of the More Refrangible Solar Rays”}

• ^{Somerville then wrote a complete book called “ Mechanism of the Heavens", which was a description of the solar system, wrote over 4 years}

• ^{Astronomer Sir John Herschel loved the piece, and recommended it to a publisher} 

• ^{The book was a huge success, and led to Somerville being inducted into the Royal Astronomical Society}

^{Major achievements}

• ^{Wrote “On the Connection of the Physical Science” in 1837 which continued on in new editions which passed her death}

• ^{Was one of the first scientists, male or female, to propose that Uranus was a planet}

• ^{First woman inducted into the Royal Astronomical Society}

• ^{Her next work was “Physical Geography”, published in 1848}

• ^{Physical Geography was one of the most influential works, and changed the way people thought about geography}

• ^{Wrote “Molecular and Microscopic Science”, over the course of 10 years}

• ^{Somerville College in Oxford university is named after her}

• ^{Signed the very first women's suffrage petition at the age of 87}

  Sources:

• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Somerville

• https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Somerville/