Fermat's Enigma

by Simon Singh

Germain’s contribution may have been forever wrongly attributed to the mysterious Monsieur Le Blanc were it not for the Emperor Napoleon. In 1806 Napoleon was invading Prussia and the French army was storming through one German city after another. Germain feared that the fate that befell Archimedes might also take the life of her other great hero, Gauss, so she sent a message to her friend General Joseph-Marie Pernety, who was in charge of the advancing forces. She asked him to guarantee Gauss’s safety, and as a result the general took special care of the German mathematician, explaining to him that he owed his life to Mademoiselle Sophie Germain. Gauss was grateful but surprised, for he had never heard of the mysterious lady. The game was up. In Germain’s next letter to Gauss she reluctantly revealed her true identity. Far from being angry at the deception, Gauss wrote back to her with delight: But how to describe to you my admiration and astonishment at seeing my esteemed correspondent Monsieur Le Blanc metamorphose himself into this illustrious personage who gives such a brilliant example of what I would find it difficult to believe. A taste for the abstract sciences in general and above all the mysteries of numbers is excessively rare: one is not astonished at it: the enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal themselves only to those who have the courage to go deeply into it. But when a person of the sex which, according to our customs and prejudices, must encou...