154 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



Anna Barbara Reinhardt of "Winterthur in Switzerland 

 was another woman of exceptional mathematical talent. 

 She is remarkable for having extended and improved the 

 solution of a difficult problem that specially engaged the 

 attention of Maupertuis. According to so competent an 

 authority as Jean Bernouilli, she was the superior, as a 

 mathematician, of the Marquise de Chatelet. 



Of a more original and profound mathematical mind was 

 Sophie Germain, a countrywoman of the Marquise du Cha- 

 telet. Hers was the glory of being one of the founders of 

 mathematical physics. A pupil of Lagrange and a co- 

 worker with Biot, Legendre, Poisson and Lagrange, she 

 has justly been called by De Prony "the Hypatia of the 

 nineteenth century/' 



Her success, however, was not achieved without overcom- 

 ing many and great difficulties. In the first place, she had 

 to overcome the opposition of her family, who were de- 

 cidedly averse to her studying mathematics. "Of what 

 use," they asked, "was geometry to a girl?" But in try- 

 ing to extinguish her ardor for mathematics they but aug- 

 mented it. Alone and unaided she read every work on 

 mathematics she could find. The study of this science had 

 such a fascination for her that it became a passion. It 

 occupied her mind day and night. Finally her parents, 

 becoming alarmed about her health and resolved to force 

 her to take the necessary repose, left her bedroom without 

 fire or light, and even removed from it her clothing after 

 she had gone to bed. She feigned to be resigned ; but when 

 all were asleep, she arose and, wrapping herself in quilts 

 and blankets, she devoted herself to her favorite studies, 

 even when the cold was so intense that the ink was frozen in 

 her ink-horn. Not infrequently she was found in the morn- 

 ing chilled through, having been so engrossed in her studies 

 that she was not aware of her condition. Before such a 

 determined will, so extraordinary for one of her age, the 

 family of the young Sophie had the wisdom to permit her 



