June 24, 1831

To all my future mathematicians, 

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Sophie Germain, one of very few female mathematicians from my century. I'm writing this because unfortunately my time has come and I don't know how many days I have left. Not that long ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer, but I wanted to tell you about my life before I pass so that I can encourage young women to pursue their dreams of pursuing careers in the mathematical sciences. 

That's me!

I was born on April 1st in the year of 1776 in Paris, France. That was the year the American Revolution began. Thirteen short years later, the French Revolution began. I like to think I was born for revolution but that's just between you and me. 

I grew up in a wealthy middle class family due to my father's career as a merchant and director of the Bank of France. Despite our wealth, my parents didn't choose to spend it on my education, at least for awhile. 

When the French Revolution began, we were confined to our home for long periods of time for safety due to the revolts. I'm sure you can imagine how boring that would have been. At least for me, since I love to read, I spent the long boring days perusing my father's library. 

One day I came across a book about Archimedes' death. On the day of his death, he was so involved in a mathematical problem that he failed to answer some soldier's questions and so he was speared to death! Terrible isn't it? But what amazed me was the fact that he was so preoccupied by this problem, that he died for it. Surely that made mathematics interesting. I decided that day that I was going to study mathematics. 

Unfortunately my parents didn't agree with my decision to study mathematics. Of course I couldn't blame them, no women ever did such thing in our middle class culture. But I'm different! In order to learn mathematics, I had to teach myself in secret at night. My parents found out though, and began taking away my clothes, depriving me of heat and light so I was forced to stay in bed. But, little did they know, I had extra quilts and secret candles to help me study. I know you may think my parents were crazy, and yes they were, but I still loved them. After much fighting with my parents about my passion to study, they finally decided I was "incurable." And thus I got to learn with as much freedom as I wanted, through books of course. So during the Reign of Terror, I studied differential calculus, and I didn't even need a tutor. Take that!

In 1794, when I was 18 an academy opened for the study of mathematics and science but I'll discuss that in much more detail in my next letter, assuming I'm still capable of writing. 

Until then, 

Sophie

Sources:

Swift, Amanda. “Sophie Germain.” Biographies of Women Mathematicians, July 2001, www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/germain.htm.