Sophie's Diary: A Mathematical Novel

Spectrum

by Dora Musielak

The French mathematician Sophie Germain was the first woman in the history of mathematics to make a substantial contribution to the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Much published research about Germain focuses on her mathematical feats, made under an assumed male name, yet no biography has explained how Germain learned mathematics before that time. Sophie's A Mathematical Novel is an attempt to answer this question. It chronicles the coming of age of a teenager learning mathematics on her own, growing up during the most turbulent years of the French Revolution. The fictionalised diary uses mathematics and historically accurate accounts of the social chaos that reigned in Paris between 1789 and 1794 to describe Germain's remarkable learning journey. The intellectual and personal struggles of this exceptional young woman will inspire a variety of readers, both students and teachers, mathematicians and novices.

292 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2012

Reviews

[Just a dreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5*

Someone should have just told me that this is fictional in the beginning... I was so impressed by the 12/13year old who could do complex analysis.... It was all a lie??

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this is a work of fiction, literally every entry in the “diary” of Sophie Germain could plausibly be true. Germain was a woman that grew up in France in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, when the social norms were that women did not engage in intellectual pursuits. These norms were strongly enforced; it was very difficult for a woman to get any kind of an education in mathematics or any other science.
A strong-willed girl, Sophie was determine to learn mathematics and she did so on her own from the reference materials she was able to acquire and later via correspondence with well-known mathematicians. Her parents meant well in trying to guide her down the “normal” path of a society woman, but Sophie persisted in her pursuit of mathematical knowledge.
The time of Sophie’s youth was one of great turmoil in France, the concentration of wealth in the hands of the aristocracy and clergy led to the violent explosion known as the French Revolution, when terror reigned supreme. People were executed as enemies of the state for petty transgressions; even scientists were not immune from a fate ending at the guillotine.
The entries of this diary, which end in 1794, are a combination of Sophie describing her discoveries and difficulties while learning mathematics as well as the events of the revolution taking place all around her. Even though mathematics by itself is free of politics and other human foibles, it always operates within the historical context, if only because the people that do it are humans operating in a society.
This is a great novel; it is accurate enough to be a reference in a history of math course, which is highly unusual for a work of fiction.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission and this review appears on Amazon.