1. Marie-Sophie Germain had one younger sister, Angelique-Ambroise, and one older sister, Marie-Madeline.
32 Facts About Sophie Germain
1. 2.
When Sophie Germain was 13, the Bastille fell, and the revolutionary atmosphere of the city forced her to stay inside.
3.
Sophie Germain thought that if the geometry method, which at that time referred to all of pure mathematics, could hold such fascination for Archimedes, it was a subject worthy of study.
4.
Sophie Germain enjoyed by Etienne Bezout and by Jacques Antoine-Joseph Cousin.
5.
Sophie Germain's parents did not at all approve of her sudden fascination with mathematics, which was then thought inappropriate for a woman.
6.
In 1794, when Sophie Germain was 18, the Ecole Polytechnique opened.
7.
Sophie Germain obtained the lecture notes and began sending her work to Joseph Louis Lagrange, a faculty member.
8.
When Lagrange saw the intelligence of M Le Blanc, he requested a meeting, and thus Sophie was forced to disclose her true identity.
9.
Fortunately, Lagrange did not mind that Sophie Germain was a woman, and he became her mentor.
10.
Sophie Germain first became interested in number theory in 1798 when Adrien-Marie Legendre published.
11.
Three months after the incident, Sophie Germain disclosed her true identity to Gauss.
12.
Sophie Germain submitted her paper early in the fall of 1811 and did not win the prize.
13.
The contest was extended by two years, and Sophie Germain decided to try again for the prize.
14.
The contest was extended once more, and Sophie Germain began work on her third attempt.
15.
Sophie Germain submitted her third paper, "", under her own name, and on 8 January 1816 she became the first woman to win a prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences.
16.
Sophie Germain did not appear at the ceremony to receive her award.
17.
Sophie Germain had derived the correct differential equation, but her method did not predict experimental results with great accuracy, as she had relied on an incorrect equation from Euler, which led to incorrect boundary conditions.
18.
Sophie Germain published her prize-winning essay at her own expense in 1821, mostly because she wanted to present her work in opposition to that of Poisson.
19.
Sophie Germain used the mean curvature in her research.
20.
Sophie Germain outlined a strategy for a general proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, including a proof for a special case.
21.
Sophie Germain asked Gauss whether her approach to the theorem was worth pursuing.
22.
Sophie Germain proved or nearly proved several results that were attributed to Lagrange or were rediscovered years later.
23.
Sophie Germain wanted to classify facts and generalize them into laws that could form a system of psychology and sociology, which were then just coming into existence.
24.
In, the work admired by Comte, Sophie Germain argues that there are no substantive differences between the sciences and the humanities.
25.
Vesna Petrovich found that the educated world's response to the publication in 1821 of Sophie Germain's prize-winning essay "ranged from polite to indifferent".
26.
Sophie Germain's contemporaries had good things to say relating to her work in mathematics.
27.
The modern view generally acknowledges that although Sophie Germain had great talent as a mathematician, her haphazard education had left her without the strong base she needed to truly excel.
28.
Sophie Germain's resting place in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris is marked by a gravestone.
29.
The Sophie Germain Prize, awarded annually by the Foundation Sophie Germain, is conferred by the Academy of Sciences in Paris.
30.
Sophie Germain was referenced and quoted in David Auburn's 2001 play Proof.
31.
Sophie Germain was mentioned in John Madden's film adaptation of the same name in a conversation between Catherine and Hal.
32.
Sophie Germain is referenced in Season 1 Episode 3 of the 2025 British miniseries Prime Target.