Entry
Sophie Germain — Mathematician, winner of the Académie des sciences prize on elastic surfaces, 1776–1831
The daughter of a merchant who sat for the Third Estate, self-taught, she obtained the lecture notes of the École polytechnique, closed to women, under the name of a former student, Antoine Auguste Le Blanc, and corresponded under that name with Lagrange and then Gauss. After Chladni’s visit to Paris in 1809, the Institut offered a prize for the theory of elastic surfaces; she submitted three memoirs in 1811, 1813 and 1815, and the prize was proclaimed hers on 8 January 1816, at a public session she did not attend. Her death certificate calls her a woman of independent means. (Editorial synthesis)
Sophie Germain was born on 1 April 1776. (source: Encyclopædia Britannica)
Sophie Germain was born in Paris. (source: Encyclopædia Britannica)
Sophie Germain died on 27 June 1831. (source: Encyclopædia Britannica)
Sophie Germain died in Paris. (source: Encyclopædia Britannica)
Sophie Germain died of breast cancer. (source: Encyclopædia Britannica)
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