Department of Mathematics presents "Sophie Germain: A comparison with Maria Gaetana Agnesi", a talk given by Math Major Haley Blasi '19

In post revolutionary France during the nineteenth century, Sophie Germain was not able to find a space to fully embrace her talent, her passion, and her determination to advance mathematical knowledge.  Although living at the center of the scientific happening, she found herself less capable than her female Italian colleague Maria Agnesi to convince the scientific community of her abilities even though her work contains ideas that were novel and powerful even when compared to work of well established mathematicians of her time, like Legendre.