Sophie Germain

Sophie Germain stood right between Gauss and Legendre, and both publicly recognized her scientific efforts. Unlike her female predecessors and contemporaries, Sophie Germain was an impressive mathematician and made lasting contributions to both number theory and the theories of plate vibrations and elasticity. She was able to walk with ease across the bridge between the fields of pure mathematics and engineering physics. Though isolated and snubbed by her peers, Sophie Germain was the first woman to win the prize of mathematics from the French Academy of Sciences. She is the only woman who contributed to the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Sophie Germain – Revolutionary Mathematician paints a rich portrait of the brilliant and complex woman, including the mathematics she developed, her associations with Gauss, Legendre, and other leading researchers, and the tumultuous times in which she lived. In this unique biography, Dora Musielak has done the impossible―she has chronicled Sophie Germain’s brilliance through her life and work in mathematics, in a way that is simultaneously informative, comprehensive, and accurate.

Unforgettable Childhood.- Lessons from l’École Polytechnique.- Sophie’s Sublime Arithmetica.- Chladni and His Acoustic Experiments.- Euler and the Bernoullis.- Germain and Her Biharmonic Equation.- Experiments with Vibrating Plates.- Elasticity Theory After Germain.- Germain and Fermat’s Last Theorem.- Pensées de Germain.- Friends, Rivals, and Mentors.- List of Illustrations.- The Last Years.- Unanswered Questions.- Princess of Mathematics.- Germain-Gauss Correspondence.- A Bibliography on Sophie Germain.- Illustration Credits.-Index.