Q 01/05

Which male pseudonym did Sophie Germain use to send her work to mathematicians who might dismiss a woman?

A) Monsieur Le Blanc

B) Monsieur Dupont

C) Monsieur Le Roux

D) Monsieur Desjardins

Answer · why

A) Monsieur Le Blanc

Monsieur Le Blanc was a real former student in Paris whose name she borrowed, fearing what she later called the ridicule attached to a female scientis...

Q 02/05

How did Sophie Germain's parents try to stop their teenage daughter from studying mathematics at night?

A) Locked up the family's library

B) Removed her fire and clothes

C) Sent her to a convent

D) Hired a strict governess

Answer · why

B) Removed her fire and clothes

Her parents removed her fire and clothes at night, hoping the cold would keep her in bed. She wrapped herself in quilts, lit hidden candles and carrie...

Q 03/05

Which German mathematician did Sophie Germain ask a French general to protect when troops occupied his home town?

A) Friedrich Bessel

B) August Möbius

C) Carl Friedrich Gauss

D) Alexander von Humboldt

Answer · why

C) Carl Friedrich Gauss

Carl Friedrich Gauss was baffled when an officer asked after him on behalf of a Mademoiselle Germain: he knew his pen friend only by a man's name, and...

Q 04/05

Which Paris landmark was built bearing the names of 72 French men of science, but not Sophie Germain's?

A) The Arc de Triomphe

B) The Panthéon

C) The Paris Observatory

D) The Eiffel Tower

Answer · why

D) The Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower was built with 72 names in raised letters beneath its first balcony, all of them men, although Germain's own mathematics fed into the...

Q 05/05

Sophie Germain took up mathematics after reading how which ancient thinker was killed while absorbed in geometry?

A) Pythagoras

B) Euclid

C) Eratosthenes

D) Archimedes

Answer · why

D) Archimedes

Archimedes, the story goes, was cut down by a Roman soldier because he would not leave his diagram. The 13-year-old Germain decided that a subject so ...