By Professor Ruth Watts.Science, a vast field of knowledge so important in the modern world, has traditionally been perceived as ‘masculine’, and women have generally been excluded or pushed to the periphery. Modern studies have explored the reasons for this and have found many examples of women who managed to break through the barriers. The… Continue reading Scientific Women: Finding ‘a way in’ through the centuries
By Aime Williams During the mid- seventeenth century, there arose a new strand of philosophical thinking -- the premise of which was that truth had been encoded into the world by God through his creation. The best way to find these truths, therefore, was to examine the world via observation and the senses. The central text… Continue reading “An Inexhaustible Treasure of Fancy”: Thomas Sprat, Margaret Cavendish and Aphra Behn.
By Lamorna Newcombe Fifteen year old Mary Fairfax was one day shown an intriguing problem in a ladies' fashion magazine at an Edinburgh tea-party. However, she was more fascinated by the code that the answer was presented in than the answer itself. At that time, little did she know that her interest in algebra would… Continue reading Mary Fairfax Somerville: Queen of Nineteenth Century Science
