This fall I had the pleasure of taking a class called Women in Math, in which we studied not only specific examples of women mathematicians, but also womens issues in mathematics and other fields. One of the mathematicians I researched for the class was Sophie Germain. This site is some of the information I found on her as well as links to sites where you can find more on her life or things related to her.

Sophie Germain was very ahead of her time not only in her lifestyle but also in her mathematics. She was very liberal and fought off opposition to learn about the subject she loved. She also was the first mathematician to try and prove Fermat's Last Theorem for more than one case at a time. Due to the recent proof of FTL, she has become an interest again for mathematicians even today. Her influence is still seen today in work on prime numbers and vibration.