Early Life Into Mathematics
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Marie-Sophie Germain was born on April 1,1776 in Rue Saint-Denis, Paris, France. She was the middle daughter and had one younger sister, named Angélique-Ambroise and one older sister, named Marie-Madeline. Her father, Ambroise-FranÒ«ois, was a silk merchant and her mother, was a stay home mom. In her early life, there was revolutionary atmosphere which forced many people to stay inside, so for her entertainment was her father's library. While Sophie was in her father's library she read the book of Archimedes, and was interested in the Geometry Method and thought that if this method was interesting to Archimedes himself, its a subject worthy of study.She filled herself with knowledge from books, she even taught herself Greek and Latin so she could learn about the teachings of Sir Isaac Newton and Leonhard Euler. During that time it was hard for women to gain a sense of knowledge because they couldn't attend any type of school, but that really didn't matter to Sophie. In 1794 the École Polytechnique opened and was a house of study. Although Sophie wasn't allowed to attend, she obtained lecture notes and began sending her work as a former student named, Monsieur Antoine-August LeBlanc, to a faculty member named, Joseph Louis Lagrange. Lagrange saw intelligence in her work and he requested a meeting, and this is when Sophie was forced to disclose her true identity. Fortunately, When Lagrange saw the intelligence of M. LeBlanc, he requested a meeting, and thus Sophie was forced to disclose her true identity. Lagrange really did not mind that Germain was a woman and from there on became her mentor. This was a major turning point in Sophie's interest in mathematics.
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Middle Life
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Sophie then took interest in competing in the Paris Academy of Sciences. The main focus of the Paris Academy of Sciences was "to give the mathematical theory of the vibration of an elastic surface and to compare the theory to experimental evidence." In 1809, Sophie began her experiments and work with the assistance of Legendre, and she turned in her finished paper in 1811. Unfortunately, she did not win, she then went back and began to work again and did not give up. After her third submission, on 8 January 1816 she became the first woman to win a prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences.
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Final Year's
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In 1829, Germain found out she has breast cancer. Despite her unfortunate battle with breast cancer she still continued her work in mathematics. In 1831 Crelle's Journal published her paper on the curvature of elastic surfaces. Then, on June 27 of 1831, she died in the house at 13 rue de Savoie, she was 55. After her death, when the matter of honorary degrees came up at the University of Göttingen in 1837; six years after Germain's death, Gauss mentioned that "she proved to the world that even a woman can accomplish something worthwhile in the most rigorous and abstract of the sciences and for that reason would well have deserved an honorary degree."
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