

Female Mathematician's Program to Solve Fermat's Last Theorem: Almost Lost to History - edw519
http://blog.sciencenews.org/mathtrek/2008/02/an_attack_on_fermat.html#more

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antiform
"A taste for the mysteries of numbers is excessively rare, but when a person
of the sex which must encounter infinitely more difficulties than men to
familiarize herself with these thorny researches, succeeds nevertheless in
penetrating the most obscure parts of them, then without a doubt she must have
the noblest courage, quite extraordinary talents and superior genius." - Gauss
to Sophie Germain

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hhm
"Female Mathematician"?? Sophie Germain deserves the use of her own name, as
much as you wouldn't say "Male Mathematician" to refer to Fermat. Sophie
Germain was one of the greatest mathematicians of all times.

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mhartl
_Sophie Germain was one of the greatest mathematicians of all times._

Well, no. While the term "female mathematician" is oddly dismissive, Sophie
Germain is nevertheless famous mainly because she was a _woman_ who did
mathematics. This isn't to diminish her remarkable achievements in the face of
entrenched sexism, but she was hardly a great mathematician.

In fact, I'd hazard to guess that a plausible list of the 100 greatest
mathematicians and theoretical physicists (for most of history there was
little distinction between the two) would contain at most two women (Emmy
Noether and Maria Goeppert Mayer). I have a theory about why this is the case,
but this comment box is too small to contain it.

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hhm
Oh, I might have been wrong, thanks for your reply.

