Sep 29, 2010
— read in fullFamous scientists: Sophie Germain
Who was she?
Sophie Germain was an influential French mathematician who made important contributions to differential geometry and number theory.
She wanted to study in the Ecole Polytechnique, but was not allowed to enter because she was a woman. Sophie, determined that she would have the chance to join in this male-dominated sphere, came up with a cunning way around the rule. She assumed the identity of a former student, Monsieur le Blanc, and began writing to the lecturer Joseph-Louis Lagrange with solutions to the mathematical problems that he posed to his students. Lagrange was enormously impressed at the talent of this mysterious pupil, and eventually insisted on being able to meet ‘him.’ It was then that Germain had to reveal her true identity.
Changing attitudes
She used the same trick later on, when she began writing letters to the mathematician Carl Gauss. She impressed him with her mathematical knowledge, and even proposed a mathematical proof which influenced the solving of Fermats last theorem. When Gauss finally discovered that his penpal was a woman, he was so impressed that he wrote, “without doubt she must have the noblest courage, quite extraordinary talents and superior genius.”
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