My Science School

           Ada Lovelace was one of the most picturesque characters in computer history. She was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron, and her mother, who did not want her to become a poet like her father, brought her up to be a mathematician and scientist.

           She wrote a scientific paper in 1843 that anticipated the development of computer software, artificial intelligence, and computer music. She wrote the world’s first computer programmes for the Analytical Engine, a general-purpose machine that Charles Babbage had invented. The calculations were never carried out, as the machine was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer, and of software.

             Understanding that computers could do a lot more than just crunch numbers, Ada suggested that the analytical engine ‘might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music’. Sadly, she never had the chance to fully explore the possibilities of either Babbage’s inventions or her own understanding of computing, for she died, aged only 36, on 27th November 1852, of cancer.

 

Elizabeth Cady Stanton played a leadership role in the women’s rights movement. She was the daughter of a lawyer, and she showed early her desire to excel in intellectual and other ‘male’ spheres. In 1840, Elizabeth Cady Stanton married a reformer Henry Stanton, and they went at once to the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London, where she joined other women in objecting to the fact that they were not allowed into the assembly.

Elizabeth was for many years the architect and author of the movement’s most important strategies and documents. Along with other women, she took the lead in proposing that women be granted the right to vote. She continued to write and lecture on women’s rights and other reforms of the day, including the right to divorce.

During the Civil War, Elizabeth Cady Stanton concentrated her efforts on abolishing slavery, but afterwards, she became even more outspoken in promoting the right to vote for women. She travelled widely to give lectures and speeches. Elizabeth Cady Stanton died on October 26th, 1902, and was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable individuals in American history. 

Margaret Fuller was America’s first true feminist. She was also a social reformer, critic, and teacher whose words enriched the lives of many people. Margaret received a good classical education, which was very unusual for a young girl at that time.

As an adult, Margaret Fuller worked as a teacher, and felt the need to give public lectures. As there were local laws against women giving public addresses, she billed her lectures as ‘conversations’, and in 1839, at the age of 29, began offering them at a bookshop in Boston. For two years, in the early 1840’s, Fuller was the editor of, the magazine ‘The Dial’. It was in the pages of The Dial that she published one of her significant early feminist works, ‘The Great Lawsuit: Man vs. Men, Woman vs. Women’.

Margaret later became a book reviewer and correspondent for the New York Tribune. She worked for the Tribune from 1844 to 1846, often writing about reformist ideas such as improving conditions in prisons. In 1846, she became the first female foreign correspondent in America. Fuller published several books, and edited a magazine before dying tragically at the age of 40. Her writings and the conduct of her life served as an inspiration to later advocates for women’s rights, for she was a feminist at a time when the role of women in society was severely limited. 

Harriet Martineau is an inspiration for women with multiple disabilities. She suffered from ill heath, a number of disabilities, and deep childhood unhappiness. Still she became a major intellectual force of her day. Not only was she a scholarly success, but she exerted a strong social force to improve the status of women and the poor.

From an early age, Harriet suffered from various weaknesses. She had no sense of smell or taste, and later, became deaf too. Her family became very poor after the death of her father, and a man of whom she was very fond of, died. In spite of all these setbacks, she wrote extensively on female education and women’s rights, and on economics and politics. She published devotional exercises anti addresses, prayers and hymns, and also stood up for the poor, and spoke up against slavery.

Harriet developed a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Writers from abroad, such as Erasmus, praised her work. Amazingly, she underwent a course of treatment that completely cured her of all her ailments. Some of her books became best sellers, thus solving all her financial difficulties as well. Now don't you agree that her life is truly an inspiration to everyone?

Dorothea Dix did more than anyone else of her generation to improve the lives of mentally ill people in America. In 1841, she volunteered to hold a devotional hour for women in the East Cambridge jail, and was aghast to discover that some of the tattered inmates were chained in a filthy, cold cell simply because they were mentally ill. Dix then devoted her life to improving conditions for the mentally ill. She travelled more than 30,000 miles over a three-year period to spur legislators into doing the right thing for the mentally ill. She became Superintendent of Female Nurses during the Civil War, and after the war, resumed travel throughout the United States and Europe on behalf of the mentally ill. By 1880, Dix had a direct hand in founding 32 of 123 mental hospitals in the country. 

Sojourner Truth was a woman of remarkable intelligence despite her illiteracy. She was born a slave, and her real name was Isabella Baum free. She was sold several times before slavery was abolished in 1827 in New York.

Inspired by religion, Truth transformed herself from a domestic servant named Isabella into a powerful preacher named Sojourner Truth. She had great presence. She was tall- some 5 feet 11 inches in height. Her voice was low, and her singing voice was marvellous. Whenever she spoke in public, she also sang. No one ever forgot the power of Sojourner Truth’s singing, just as her wit and originality of phrasing were also memorable. She became an outspoken advocate of women’s rights as well as blacks’ rights. Truth became a national symbol for strong black women, indeed, for all strong women, and her words have inspired black women and poor people all over the world to this day. 

Olympe de Gouges was born to working class parents, but took her place amidst the French intellectuals who advocated the French Revolution. She was a popular playwright, and she strongly advocated the rights of French women. She spoke for not only herself, but many of the women of France, when in 1791 she wrote and published the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen’. Olympe asserted that woman was not simply the same as man, but that she was his equal partner, and so, she should enjoy the same rights as man. Unfortunately, Olympe was too far ahead of her times. For asserting this equality, and repeating the assertion publicly, Olympe de Gouges was arrested in July 1793, four years after the Revolution. She was sent to the guillotine in November of that year. 

           Sophie Germain was born in an era of revolution. In the year of her birth, the American Revolution began. Thirteen years later, the French Revolution began in her own country. She herself became a revolutionary mathematician, number theorist, and mathematical physicist.

              When Sophie Germain was 13, her parents kept her isolated from the turmoil of the French Revolution by keeping her in the house. She fought boredom by reading from her father’s extensive library. It is said that she read the story of Archimedes of Syracuse who was reading geometry as he was killed - and she decided to commit her life to a subject that could so absorb one’s attention. After discovering geometry, Sophie Germain taught herself mathematics, and also Latin and Greek so that she could read the classical mathematics texts.

            Calling herself M. Le Blanc, Sophie corresponded with many mathematicians and ‘M. Le Blanc’ began to have an impact in turn on them. She gave herself a man’s name, because she felt that a woman’s views on Mathematics would not be taken seriously. However, even when it was discovered that M. Le Blanc was a woman, leading mathematicians continued to correspond with her.

           Before 1808, Germain mainly worked in number theory. Then she became interested in Chladni figures, patterns produced by vibration, and won a prize for a paper on that subject. This work laid the foundation to the applied mathematics used in the construction of skyscrapers today, and was important at the time to the new field of mathematical physics, especially to the study of acoustics and elasticity.

           Sophie Germain was, without doubt, a revolutionary, for she battled against the social prejudices of the era and a lack of formal training in order to become a celebrated mathematician. 

Jeanne d’ Albret was a key leader in the Huguenot party in France in the 16th century. In 1555, Jeanne’s father died, and Jeanne became ruler of Navarre in her own right. Jeanne declared, on Christmas of 1560, her conversion to the reformed faith. In spite of pressures from all quarters, she courageously stuck to her faith, maintained her power, and determinedly fought for the freedom of people from different faiths to live peacefully together. Jeanne always acted according to her conscience, fulfilling her duties as a queen, and her responsibilities as a mother who had to bring up a future king. 

                   Judith Sargent Murray was an eighteenth-century writer known for her essays on education for women, on equality, and on economic independence for all people. She has a series of ‘firsts’ to her name. Judith was the first American woman to self-publish a book, one of the first American writers of plays, and the first woman to have a play produced on stage in America. She was also the first to claim female equality in print, and the only eighteenth century woman to have kept ‘letter books’ in a consistent manner.

                  In 1773 or 1774, at about the age of twenty-three, Judith decided to start making copies of the letters she sent to family, friends, political leaders, and business acquaintances. As a self-taught student of history, she knew the importance of documentation. She understood that momentous political and intellectual changes were taking place. And so, she began to create what would become twenty volumes of letters – left behind for future generations. She was, without doubt, a remarkable person, and one of America’s earliest champions of female equality, education, economic independence, and political engagement.

 

Queen Isabella was the Queen of Castile, who, along with her husband, King Ferdinand of Aragon, financed Christopher Columbus’ expedition to the Indies, which resulted in the discovery of America. She was the half sister of Henry IV, who succeeded to the Castilian throne in 1454. Henry had recognized Isabella as his heir, but when she married Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469, Henry conferred the succession on his daughter. This led to a civil war when Henry died.

The civil war ended with Isabella’s victory in 1479, the year in which Ferdinand became king of Aragon. Isabella and Ferdinand ruled Castile and Aragon jointly, and their reign in effect, marked the beginning of the unified Spanish kingdom. Isabella confiscated the lands of many rich people. She also took over the administration of the holdings of the powerful religious military orders, and was a prime mover in the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the conquest of Granada, and the forced conversion of the Moors. In what was Isabel’s last decade, she acquired paintings and tapestries by Flemish masters and devotional books from the new printing presses, to bring the Renaissance to Spain too.

With the discovery of America, thanks to Isabella’s courage and foresight in giving Columbus the funds for his venture, Spain began its rise to greatness. Under Isabella’s guidance, Spain’s army and navy became strong, trade flourished, and Spain became a world power.

 

          Hatshepsut was the first wife, and Queen of Thutmose II. When he died, she proclaimed herself Pharaoh, denying the old king’s son his inheritance. Hatshepsut was a very unique and intelligent individual. She used various strategies to legitimize her position as pharaoh. She claimed God told her to rule as the king, and so she took on several male adornments while she ruled Egypt. Unlike most women of that time, she attached a false beard, wore male clothing, and was depicted in statutes as a pharaoh, and not as a queen.

          Hatshepsut remained in power for twenty years, and during this time the Egyptian economy flourished. She ordered the army to make it useful, not by going to battle, but by setting off on a trading expedition to the land of Punt, where no Egyptian had been for more than 500 years.

          The expedition was an enormous success, and enhanced Hatshepsut’s reputation. She became known as the ruler who had reached out to foreign countries, and who had delivered to the Egyptians marvellous wonders from far away. 

Trota, who is also known as Trotula, lived sometime in the eleventh century in Salerno in Southern Italy. At that time, Salerno was famous for its hospitals, and the first medical school was established there. Many women were trained as physicians, and were professors of medicine.

Trotula was one of the most famous physicians of that time. Her main interest was to alleviate the suffering of women. She was the author of many medical works, including a book on the diseases of women. She wrote it to educate male doctors about the female body, because such knowledge was generally lacking.

The book comprises 63 chapters, and gives a lot of information about the medical problems faced by women. The majority of the remedies that she recommends are herbs, spices, and oils. Her work influenced physicians in the centuries to come. There is no doubt that Trotula was instrumental in bringing about a change in society due to her scientific revelations.

‘The Tale of Genji’ is a Japanese epic that is divided into 54 books or episodes. The action covers the better part of a century, with over 400 characters spanning four generations. The hero, Hikaru Genji or the Shining One, seeks love and happiness driven by the haunting image of his dead mother. Because of his exuberant personality Genji becomes very popular. But the novel that begins with the enchanting atmosphere of a fairy tale ends in the most complex psychological analysis of unhappy people shrouded in blackest gloom.

 

Murasaki Shikibu is one of Japan’s best known writers. In fact, many consider her to be the world’s first modern novelist. Her book, ‘The Tale of Genji’, is the world’s first psychological novel, and one of the longest, and most distinguished masterpieces of Japanese literature.

When she was in her early twenties, Murasaki was married to a distant relative. Her only daughter was born in 999. After the death of her husband in 1001 AD, knowing of her writing talent and her brilliant mind, the imperial family brought Lady Murasaki to court. While at the court, she kept a dairy that gives us vivid insights into life in the imperial court.

‘The Tale of Genji’ is loosely based on her years as lady-in-waiting to the Empress Akiko. It is a very long novel about complications in the life of a fictitious prince called Genji. Like many of the court ladies, Shikibu was a master at observing the daily activities and attitudes of upper class society. Among the novel’s chief delights are the portraits of the women in Prince Genji’s life. These women are individually described, with their aristocratic refinements, talents in the arts of music and poetry, and love for the beauties of nature. As the work nears its conclusion, the tone becomes more mature and somber, shaded by Buddhist judgments on the fleeting joys of earthly existence. The novel has been translated into many languages and been studied through the ages.