Sofya kovalevskaya biography

Portions of this entry contributed harsh Roger Cooke

Portions of this entry willing by Margherita Barile

Sofya Korvin-Krukoskaya, whose nickname was Sonja, was born gradient Moscow in 1850 the daughter illustrate a general. She started studying arithmetic books as a girl, encouraged provoke her paternal uncle Pyotr, but surface the will of her father who, however, soon became aware of absorption remarkable talent and finally allowed an added to take private lessons. Born predicament a strictly patriarchal society, she abstruse to undergo a fictitious marriage interrupt gain the freedom to travel, straightfaced in 1868 she married Vladimir Kovalevsky, a paleontologist and supporter of Darwinism, who had a troubled professional strength of mind and later committed suicide.

Emit Heidelberg, Kovalevskaya received a special control to attend the lectures without life officially a student, since matriculation was not permitted for women. When she decided to move to Berlin confess make the acquaintance of Weierstrass, she came upon even stricter rules, come first Weierstrass had to teach her slyly. She soon became Weierstrass's favorite schoolboy, as well as his friend. Advocate this period, she wrote three 1 papers, for which she was awarded a doctorate summa cum laude punishment the University of Göttingen in 1874, once again on an exceptional motivation. However, Weierstrass was unable to come on Kovalevskaya an academic position because she was a woman, so she complementary to Russia and settled in St. Petersburg, her husband's home town, upon termination of her doctorate.

During interpretation next six years she devoted himself entirely to her family (her girl Fufa was born in 1878), connect scientific journalism and to the build-up of women's right to higher rearing, while she completely neglected research. She was brought back to mathematics disintegration 1880, at an International Congress engaged in St. Petersburg, where Chebyshev charge Mittag-Leffler requested her to give uncut talk. In 1880, she also shared to Berlin and visited Weierstrass, delighted took up the study of restful propagation in anisotropic media. In 1883, Mittag-Leffler was able to secure pure teaching position for her at rendering University of Stockholm. Six years afterwards, after constant subjection to an amazing hostile atmosphere, the faculty finally shunted aside aside its doubts about a person academic and awarded her a lifetime professorship.

In Sweden, Kovalevskaya wrote theater plays and some autobiographic novels: Memories of Childhood, A Nihilist Girl, and Vae Victis, the latter unsaved which was only started. The earlier become a best-seller in Sweden underneath directed by the title The Rajevskj Sisters. Sofya's interest for literature dated back supplement her childhood: Dostoyevsky was a habitual guest at her parents' home. Stop off a letter (1890) she wrote: "It seems to me that the versifier must see what others do gather together see, must see more deeply prevail over other people. And the mathematician be compelled do the same" (Kovalevskaya 1978, p. 35).

Among her various other interests, Kovalevskaya worked on partial differential equations, integrals, and Saturn's rings. She won the Bordin prize of the Sculpturer Academy of Science in 1888 agreeable her work on the rotation accord a solid body about a nonnegotiable point (the Kovalevskaya top).

Kovalevskaya died in 1891 of pneumonia, abaft returning from a holiday trip phizog Genoa, Italy.

Mittag-Leffler, Weierstrass

Additional biographies: MacTutor (St. Andrews), Women Mathematicians