Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!accuvax.nwu.edu!tank!uxc!deimos.cis.ksu.edu!unmvax!ncar!gatech!mcnc!ecsvax!ATHENA.MIT.EDU!erspert From: erspert@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Newsgroups: comp.society.women Subject: Women and Mathematics Message-ID: <6972@ecsvax.UUCP> Date: 9 May 89 23:13:40 GMT Sender: skyler@ecsvax.UUCP Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 62 Approved: skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts) Comments-to: comp-women-request@cs.purdue.edu Submissions-to: comp-women@cs.purdue.edu I have been enjoying the discussion of women and mathematics and thought you all might enjoy this passage I ran across from E.T. Bell's _Men_of_Mathematics_, pages 261-262. If Gauss was somewhat cool in his printed expressions of appreciation, he was cordial enough in his correspondence and in his scientific relations with those who sought him out in a spirit of disinterested inquiry. One of his scientific friendships is of more than mathematical interest as it shows the liberality of Gauss' views regarding women scientific workers. His broadmindedness in this respect would have been remarkable for any man of his generation; for a German it was almost without precedent. The lady in question was Mademoiselle Sophie Germain (1776-1831) -- just a year older than Gauss. She and Gauss never met, and she died (in Paris) before the University of Gottingen could confer the honorary doctor's degree which Gauss recommended to the faculty. By a curious coincidence we shall see the most celebrated woman mathematician of the nineteenth century, another Sophie, getting her degree from the same liberal University many years later after Berlin had refused her on account of her sex. Sophie appears to be a lucky name in mathematics for women -- provided they affiliate with broadminded teachers. The leading woman mathematician of our own times, Emmy Noether (1882-1935) also came from Gottingen.@footnote(``Came from'' is right. When the sagacious Nazis expelled Fraulein Noether from Germany because she was a Jewess, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, took her in. She was the most creative abstract algebraist in the world. In less than a week of the new German enlightenment, Gottingen lost the liberality which Gauss cherished and which he strove all his life to maintain.) Sophie Germain's scientific interests embraced acoustics, the mathematical theory of elasticity, and the higher arithmetic, in all of which she did notable work... Entranced by the _Disquisitiones_Arithmeticae_, Sophie wrote to Gauss some of her own arithmetical observations. Fearing that Gauss might be prejudiced against a woman mathematician, she assumed a man's name. Gauss formed a high opinion of the talented correspondent whom he addressed in excellent French as ``Mr. Leblanc''. Leblanc dropped her -- or his -- disguise when she was forced to divulge her true name to Gauss on the occasion of her having done him a good turn with the French infesting Hanover. Writing on April 30, 1807, Gauss thanks his correspondent.... ``But how describe to you my admiration and astonishment at seeing my esteemed correspondent Mr. Leblanc metamorphose himself into this illustrious personage [Sophia Germain] who gives such a brilliant example of what I would find it difficult to believe. A taste for the abstract sciences in general and above all the mysteries of numbers is excessively rare: one is not astonished at it; the enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal themselves only to those who have the courage to go deeply into it. But when a person of the sex which, according to our customs and prejudices, must encounter infinitely more difficulties than men to familiarize herself with these thorny reseraches, succeeds nevertheless in surmounting these obstacles and penetrating the most obscure parts of them, then without doubt she must have the noblest courage, quite extraordinary talents and a superior genius....'' He then goes on to discuss mathematics with her.