Sophie Germain

Sophie Germain (1776-1831) is considered one of the world's greatest mathematicians -- she studied math at a time when it was considered a man's profession, and French society did everything it could to discourage her research. She was well respected and acknowledged by Carl Friedrich Gauss and Joseph-Louis Lagrange -- the latter taking her on as a student. Some of her most important contributions to mathematics was in searching for a proof for Fermat's Last Theorm and creating a mathematical explanation for observed elasticity behaviour found in Chladni figures. Germain spent her lifetime on the periphery of mathematics and science, never fully accepted, never fully attaining the level of training she wished to have and never taken seriously. Her final work on elasticity was ignored and not published until it was found nearly 50-years after her death. Germain died of breast cancer, and her death certificate listed her as a property holder -- not a mathematician or scientist.