Sophie Germain
Páginas: 3 (656 palabras)
Publicado: 5 de octubre de 2012
Sophie Germain
1776 � 1831
How would you feel if your parents kept you from learning? If they took away your light, your clothes, even your warmth. This is what happened to Sophie Germain, bornin a time when it was frowned upon to allow women to learn.
The daughter of a wealthy upper class French family, Sophie Germain was born in 1776, the year of the American Revolution.
Sophiewas thirteen years old when the Bastille fell. Paris was an unstable and dangerous city. During the next ten years of the French revolutionary violence, Sophie Germain spent much of her time confinedto her house, reading in her father's library. Sophie found the depth and variety of her father's library a great help during the long days of solitude. As she was reading one day she came across astory of the death of the Greek mathematician Archimedes. Although Archimedes was a brilliant man, it was the way he died that left Sophie spellbound.
She read how Archimedes was slain through theside with a spear by a Roman soldier who was conquering the citizens of Syracuse. So engrossed was Archimedes in his geometric drawings that he failed to recognize his own danger. Sophie wanted to knowwhat Archimedes was working on. What could be so engaging, so exciting, that a person would ignore their own impending death?
Her family agreed with the popular English notion of the time that"brainwork" was not healthy - even dangerous - for girls. They began to forbid Sophie from studying mathematics. Sophie, however, had a strong mind and was determined to educate herself. Night afternight she crawled out of bed and studied after everyone else had gone to sleep. When Sophie's parents discovered this they took her lamps, hid her clothes and made sure there was no heat in her room. ButSophie smuggled candles into her room and continued her studies. When her parents found her one morning, sound asleep at her desk with her pen in a frozen ink well, they relented and allowed her...
1776 � 1831
How would you feel if your parents kept you from learning? If they took away your light, your clothes, even your warmth. This is what happened to Sophie Germain, bornin a time when it was frowned upon to allow women to learn.
The daughter of a wealthy upper class French family, Sophie Germain was born in 1776, the year of the American Revolution.
Sophiewas thirteen years old when the Bastille fell. Paris was an unstable and dangerous city. During the next ten years of the French revolutionary violence, Sophie Germain spent much of her time confinedto her house, reading in her father's library. Sophie found the depth and variety of her father's library a great help during the long days of solitude. As she was reading one day she came across astory of the death of the Greek mathematician Archimedes. Although Archimedes was a brilliant man, it was the way he died that left Sophie spellbound.
She read how Archimedes was slain through theside with a spear by a Roman soldier who was conquering the citizens of Syracuse. So engrossed was Archimedes in his geometric drawings that he failed to recognize his own danger. Sophie wanted to knowwhat Archimedes was working on. What could be so engaging, so exciting, that a person would ignore their own impending death?
Her family agreed with the popular English notion of the time that"brainwork" was not healthy - even dangerous - for girls. They began to forbid Sophie from studying mathematics. Sophie, however, had a strong mind and was determined to educate herself. Night afternight she crawled out of bed and studied after everyone else had gone to sleep. When Sophie's parents discovered this they took her lamps, hid her clothes and made sure there was no heat in her room. ButSophie smuggled candles into her room and continued her studies. When her parents found her one morning, sound asleep at her desk with her pen in a frozen ink well, they relented and allowed her...
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