Sophie Germain

It’s the birthday of Sophie Germain, who was born in 1776 in Paris, France. Germain first became interested in mathematics at the age of 13, when, during the French Revolution, she discovered a mathematics book in her father’s library. Inspired, she read all the other math books in the library and taught herself Latin so that she could study Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica and other books. Despite opposition from her parents, she persevered in her studies and became a student of Joseph Lagrange. Her initial research was in number theory, but the prospect of winning a contest sponsored by the French Academy of Sciences led her to investigate elasticity theory. Her third entry in 1816 won the prize, which she could not pick it up in person because women were excluded from the Academy at that time. Germain renewed her interest in number theory. Her most significant result was to prove that Fermat’s last theorem was valid for all odd primes less than 100.

Date in History: 1 April 1776