Mour eye was drawn to an ordinary electric cabinet, Place Saint-Michel, in Paris, on which it was painted with a stencil. As we approach, we discover that it is a portrait of Sophie Germain (1776-1831)which belongs to the series “Sistine figures, famous from the 6the “.
Is this woman so famous? We can doubt it. Moreover, we do not have any reliable portrait, and the street artist Christian Guémy, alias C215, had to use his imagination to portray her.
Do passers-by know that she is a mathematician who had to fight to find its place in the male scientific environment of the beginning of the 19th century?e century?
Imagine a young Parisian woman, who probably rarely left her home during the revolution, developing a passion for mathematics by reading two amazing books in the family library: Mathematics Course for Flag Guards and NavyEtienne Bézout, iHistory of mathematics, by Jean-Etienne Montuclo.
The polytechnic school opened its doors in 1794, but only for boys (until 1972).
Sophie Germain devises a ruse: she invents a male pseudonym, “Antoine Auguste Le Blanc”, which allows her to correspond with the famous Professor Lagrange.
She even had the nerve to write to Carl Friedrich Gauss, one of the most important mathematicians of all time. And it works!
A real scientific correspondence was established on the issues of number theory. In 1806, she feared for her hero’s life because Napoleon’s troops were to pass through Brunswick, where Gauss lived.
He then recalls Montucla’s description of Archimedes’ death. During the capture of Syracuse by the Romans, Archimedes is focused on a geometric problem and hastily replies to a soldier: “Don’t disturb my circuits!” » These would be his last words.
“Noble Courage”
Germain contacts a general he knows and asks him to protect Gauss, which he does. But Gauss declares that he has never heard of Germain and the pot aux roses is revealed: Sophie Germain and Antoine Auguste Le Blanc are one and the same person.
The letter that Gauss sends after this discovery is magnificent and shows that not all mathematicians are macho men.
Here is an excerpt: “When a person of this sex, who, according to our morals and our prejudices, has to encounter infinitely more obstacles and difficulties than men in getting acquainted with her thorny research, nevertheless knows how to overcome these obstacles and penetrate into what they, moreover, hid, she must they undoubtedly have the noblest courage, absolutely extraordinary talents, supreme genius.