January 11, 2018 Thursday
Bedtime Story
Translating
The American Quarterly Review Journal in
its June 1829 issue had the following to say about Laplace’s five-volume
treatise on celestial mechanics: Traité de mécanique céleste:
“Newton laid the foundation of Celestial
Mechanics, at the close of the seventeenth century, by the discovery of the
principle of universal gravitation.
Even in his own hands, this discovery led
to important consequences, but it has required a century and a half, and a regular
succession of intellects the most powerful, to fill up the outline sketched by
him.
Of these, Laplace himself was the last,
and, perhaps after Newton, the greatest; and the task commenced in the
Principia of the former, is completed in Mécanique Celéste of the latter.
In the last named work, the illustrious
author has proposed to himself his object, to unite all the theories scattered
throughout the various channels of publication, employed by his predecessors,
to reduce them to one common method, and present them all in the same point of
view.”
In short, Mécanique Celéste of Laplace was
rated very highly in the world of both mathematics and physics in the early
nineteenth century, just second to Newton’s Principia.
One of the powerful British statesmen then
who went on to become Lord Chancellor of the Great Britain requested Somerville
to translate this work of Laplace into English.
Somerville worked on the first two volumes
of Mécanique Celéste and not only translated them but augmented and refined
them producing a work that she titled as: The Mechanism of Heavens.
In her own words she described this work
as: “I translated Laplace’s work from algebra into common language.”
In actual truth it was a beautiful
exposition of the mathematics of our solar system.
The book was published in 1831 and it brought
her instantaneous fame so much so that this book was given the status of
standard textbook for the undergraduates at University of Cambridge.
This meant that almost all or at least most
students of Cambridge would have this text as part of their curriculum.
It remained so until the 1880s when surely
some more updated book must have taken over.
It was no mean feat that in that
conservative Victorian era after the publication of this work Somerville
received congratulatory letters from “many men of science”.
Besides all the academic glory, it also
brought her some money.
Some 750 copies of the book were bought in
Cambridge alone.
Besides the sales, this work firmly
established her reputation as a serious woman of science and she was elected
honorary member to various reputed scientific societies of Dublin, Bristol and
Geneva.
The icing on the cake came at the end when
the British Crown decided to give her an annual pension of ₤200 in recognition
to her contributions made both in science and literature.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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