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Mathematical Treasure: Sophie Germain’s Paper on Elastic Surfaces

Author(s): 
Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University)

Marie-Sophie Germain (1776–1831) was a self-trained female mathematician and philosopher from France. In 1821 she funded the publication of her research paper, Recherches sur la théorie des surfaces élastiques (The Theory of Elastic Surfaces), for which she had repeatedly struggled to gain recognition.

Title page for Sophie Germain's 1821 Recherches sur la theorie des surfaces elastiques.

Four of the early pages of this paper are given below:

First page of Sophie Germain's 1821 Recherches sur la theorie des surfaces elastiques.

Second page of Sophie Germain's 1821 Recherches sur la theorie des surfaces elastiques.

Third page of Sophie Germain's 1821 Recherches sur la theorie des surfaces elastiques.

Fourth page of Sophie Germain's 1821 Recherches sur la theorie des surfaces elastiques.

The images above were obtained from the Internet Archive’s digitization of the copy owned by the Accademia della Sciences, Torino.

Index to Mathematical Treasures

Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University), "Mathematical Treasure: Sophie Germain’s Paper on Elastic Surfaces," Convergence (April 2021)