In 1806, during the Napoleonic Wars, a bold woman named Sophie Germain became concerned for the safety of one of history’s greatest mathematicians—Carl Friedrich Gauss. Using her family connections, she requested that a French commander send someone to protect him.
Gauss was saved, but when the military officer revealed the name of his rescuer, he was confused.
"But I don’t know anyone named Mademoiselle Germain," he said.
Germain then had to write to Gauss herself to explain the situation.
“In describing the honourable mission I charged him with, M. Pernety informed me that he made my name known to you. This leads me to confess that I am not as completely unknown to you as you might believe, but that fearing the ridicule attached to a female scientist, I have previously taken the name of M. LeBlanc in communicating to you those notes that, no doubt, do not deserve the indulgence with which you have responded.
{Explaining her use of a male pseudonym in a letter to Carl Friedrich Gauss, 1807}”
― Sophie Germain
Gauss was deeply impressed. He expressed his admiration for her genius and recognized her extraordinary talent.
This is Sophie Germain, 18th Century physicist, mathematician and philosopher. She was the first person for 200 years to make progress on Fermat’s last theorem and her pioneering theories on elasticity helped build the Eiffel Tower.
Her journey into science was an unusual one, as a teenager, she had to fight her parents for the right to read books and as an adult, she had to pretend to be a man to take university courses. Despite her amazing work she was not included in the list of 72 French architects and scientists whose names are inscribed in the Eiffel Tower.
Please enjoy the third edition of our mini-magazine, Short Stories of Great Women in Mathematics.
♦️ This week’s article:Ink and Numbers, Sophie Germain: A True French Love Story
The influence of Sophie Germain’s work extends far beyond mathematics, shaping fields like coding theory and cryptography. For instance, Sophie Germain primes and safe primes play a crucial role in public-key cryptography and primality testing, both of which are foundational to modern security protocols.
At Quantum Formalism (QF) Academy, we’re developing a new course, "Number Theory with Applications." This course will be led by our expert in Arithmetic Algebraic Geometry & Number Theory, Dr. Rakvi S. With a keen interest in mathematical cryptography, Dr. Rakvi previously taught our free course on the mathematical foundations of Elliptic Curve Cryptography. This new course will explore key number theory concepts and their real-world applications, providing a solid foundation for those interested in cryptography and beyond. Keep checking our courses' page at quantumformalism.academy/courses.
