Sophie Germain

June 27, 1831 To all of Sophie's future mathematicians,  It is with utmost sadness that I write to you all of the passing of Sophie Germain earlier today. She passed at the young age of 55 from a tough battle with breast cancer. I know she wanted to write more letters, so, I wanted to take this time to share with you how amazing Sophie was and how deserving she was of more recognition of her prestigious work.  I, Carl Frederick Gauss, had the wonderful opportunity of being Sophie's first mentor. Although I'd like to point out, Sophie and I were actually the same age! That just goes to show how disadvantaged Sophie was in our culture growing up. Woman of middle class did not study mathematics or sciences nor could they attend academies. Yet Sophie overcame all of that and so much more.  I am sure that Sophie made you quite aware of Fermat's last theorem. Well Sophie had this great big plan to prove the theorem. I believed in her, I really did, but this theorem ha...

June 26, 1831 To all my future mathematicians,  It's getting harder and harder to write but I must share with you some of my greatest works. In my last letter, I discussed how I had sent one final letter to Gauss and he never responded. Although I was saddened by this, I never stopped studying mathematics. I began looking for a new mentor.  In 1809, the French Academy of Sciences announced a contest to explain the vibration of elastic surfaces through mathematics. Of course this intrigued me! I began work on the two year contest and in 1811 was the only person to submit a response. Sadly from my lack of education, my submission was rejected. Lagrange helped me fix some errors and then I submitted again receiving honorable mention. That was not enough for me. I continued working on my theories and submitted for a third time. This time I won the grand prize, although admittedly, I had some shortcomings in my explanations. I continued writing and studying more about the the...

June 25, 1831 To all my future mathematicians,  In my last letter I left off discussing the academy that opened in 1794. I shall use this letter to discuss my time there as it was quite interesting!  As I was saying, Ecole Polytechnique opened in Paris in 1794 when I was 18 years old. It was an academy specifically designed for the study of mathematics and science. To no surprise, women were not allowed to attend because women of my culture did no such thing. But especially because I was of middle class, that made it even harder for me to attend. I was much disappointed by this but found a way around this little setback.  I became friends with some of the students at the academy and convinced them to kindly share their lecture notes with me. Using these, I was able to study even more mathematics and that is what led me to learning from many prominent mathematicians of my time period. One of these mathematicians that I particularly enjoyed was Joseph-Louis Lagrange...