On 27 Jun 1831, Sophie Germain died, a French mathematician who taught herself from books and the lecture notes of friends attending the École Polytechnique which she, as a woman, was not permitted to attend. Using a male pseudonym, M. LeBlanc, she corresponded with Lagrange who recognised her skill, and subsequently sponsored her work. In 1816, she won a prize sponsored by Napoleon for a mathematical explanation of Chladni figures, the vibration of elastic plates. She won, although the competition was open to such great mathematicians in Paris at the time as Lagrange, Laplace, Legendre, Poisson or Fourier; but they passed the opportunity by.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 07:33:15 +0000
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