Character Catalog

The third version of her memoir on the theory of elasticity, awarded by the Institut de France. Sophie Germain became the first woman to win this prestigious prize, laying the mathematical foundations for the study of material resistance.

Publication of her work on elasticity, a landmark reference that had a lasting influence on mathematical physics and civil engineering throughout the 19th century.

A follow-up to her previous work, in which Sophie Germain refines her equations and responds to Poisson's criticisms of the foundations of her theory.

In a letter to Gauss published by Legendre, she proves that for any prime p such that 2p+1 is also prime, Fermat's equation has no non-zero integer solutions. This result remained the most significant advance on the problem for a long time.

A philosophical essay written near the end of her life, in which Sophie Germain argues for the unity of science and the humanities and reflects on the role of reason in human history.

Sir, the researches which I have the honor of submitting to you on the theory of numbers have led me to results I would not have dared hope for… I fear you may find the developments too insufficient.

The value of z results from a double integration, and the arbitrary constants introduced by these integrations must be determined by the conditions relating to the edges of the surface.

In seeking to derive from the general principles of mechanics the laws governing the vibrations of bodies, I became convinced that the differential equations of this motion must be of a very high order.

If one examines closely the progress of the sciences, one will be struck to find that very different branches of knowledge have been cultivated simultaneously, and that those who excelled in one had often cultivated the others.

I beg you, General, to kindly arrange for M. Gauss, professor at Göttingen, whose mathematical works are of capital importance to science, to be sheltered from the consequences of the war.

It was in the library of this bourgeois townhouse that Sophie Germain, at age 13, discovered mathematics during the upheaval of the Revolution. She conducted her first self-taught research there.

Founded in 1794, this prestigious institution was the scientific heart of the Napoleonic era. Sophie Germain was barred from attending as a woman, but obtained lecture notes by correspondence under the name M. LeBlanc.

Home of the Académie des sciences, where Sophie Germain submitted her memoir on elasticity three times before winning the Grand Prix in 1816. She was the first woman admitted to its public sessions.

University town where Carl Friedrich Gauss worked — a correspondent and admirer of Sophie Germain. It was here that she intervened to protect him in 1806, giving their epistolary friendship its fullest meaning.

Sophie Germain lived in this neighborhood during the final years of her life, where she wrote her philosophical works despite her illness. She died there in 1831.