January 12, 2018 Friday
Bedtime Story
Somerville in Financial Trouble
Being a polymath, Somerville was not only
in love with mathematics but equally with astronomy and geography which as I
keep insisting in my writings are all interlinked as much as we average apes
are cousins of all currently existing living objects on this planet.
I use the word “objects” deliberately
because some living things defy all commonsensical perceptions of life.
She was not a person to simply rest in her
laurels that ‘The Mechanism of Heavens’ bestowed upon her; au contraire all
these recognitions and awards only goaded her to write more and on wider
subjects.
You have to understand mon ami that it is
very hard to make a living being a writer or worse, being a scientist.
Of course, if you chose to be a
mathematician then at least in today’s education-intensive and
competitive-exams crazy world (a direct outcome of overpopulation that each new
child has to combat with), one can make a very good living giving private
coaching classes in almost any country.
Most students are average and they will
need special training in mathematics if not anything else.
There are many romantic idealists like Neil
deGrasse Tyson who believe that there is a scientist in every child and it is
the parenting that destroys it.
I personally feel he is simply mistaking
our animal curiosity for something larger that most of us do not deserve.
The Somerville family suffered from series
of financial crises in mid 1830s notwithstanding the fact that she was receiving
aid from the crown.
By mid 1830s she was already into her
second marriage and had reproduced prolifically.
She bore two off springs from her first
husband (who later died) and then had four children through her second husband
(both her husband happened to be her cousins).
Every author including yours truly though
publicly may claim that he or she writes for the love of it, but in private
everyone wishes to make a profit of one’s writings.
So was the case with Somerville too.
Through her first book and her connections
she had secured to find her publisher who remained with her throughout her
life.
But now she required a bigger success in
writing to manage her family.
Her second husband was a physician attached
to Chelsea hospital but knowing the medicine of that era, the physicians were
more or less practicing quackery and had little to offer to their patients.
The bloodletting surgical procedure of that
time not only resulted in the futile loss of blood but lack of knowledge of
disinfection, sterility and germ theory in general but was also a source of
infection if not already present in a sick patient.
So financially it may not have been that
rewarding as it may be in modern Britain.
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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