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KOVALEVSKY, SOPHIE (1850–1891)
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See also:KOVALEVSKY, SOPHIE (1850–1891) , See also:Russian mathematician, daughter of See also:General Corvin-Krukovsky, was See also:born at See also:Moscow on the 15th of See also:January 185o. As a See also:young girl she was fired by the aspiration after intellectual See also:liberty that animated so many young Russian See also:women at that See also:period, and drove them to study at See also:foreign See also:universities, since their own were closed to them. This led her, in 1868, to See also:contract one of those conventional marriages in See also:vogue at the See also:time, with a young student, Waldemar Kovalevsky, and the two went together to See also:Germany to continue their studies. In 1869 she went to See also:Heidelberg, where she studied under H. von See also:Helmholtz, G.R. See also:Kirchhoff, L. Konigsberger and P. du Bois-Reymond, and from 1871–1874 read privately with Karl Weierstrass at See also:Berlin, as the public lectures were not then open to women. In 1894 the university of See also:Gottingen granted her a degree in absentia, excusing her from the oral examination on See also:account of the remarkable excellence of the three See also:dissertations sent in, one of which, on the theory of partial See also:differential equations, is one of her most remarkable See also:works. Another was an elucidation of P.S. See also:Laplace's mathematical theory of the See also:form of See also:Saturn's rings. Soon after this she returned to See also:Russia with her See also:husband, who was appointed See also:professor of palaeontology at Moscow, where he died in 1883. At this time Madame Kovalevsky was at See also:Stockholm, where Gustaf Mittag Leffler, also a See also:pupil of Weierstrass, who had been recently appointed to the See also:chair of See also:mathematics at the newly founded university, had procured for her a See also:post as lecturer. She discharged her duties so successfully that in 1884 she was appointed full professor. This post she held till her See also:death on the loth of See also:February 1891. In 1888 she achieved the greatest of her successes, gaining the Prix Bordin offered by the See also:Paris See also:Academy. The problem set was " to perfect in one important point the theory of the See also:movement of a solid See also:body See also:round an immovable point," and her See also:solution added a result of. the highest See also:interest to those transmitted to us by Leonhard See also:Euler and J. L. See also:Lagrange. So remarkable was this See also:work that the value of the See also:prize was doubled as a recognition of unusual merit. Unfortunately Madame Kovalevsky did not live to reap the full See also:reward of her labours, for she died just as she had attained the height of her fame and had won recognition even in her own See also:country by See also:election to membership of the St See also:Petersburg Academy of See also:Science. See E. de Kerbedz, " Sophie de Kowalevski," Benidiconti del ,.ircolo mathematico di See also:Palermo (1891); the obituary See also:notice by G. Mittag Leffler in the Acta mathematica, vol. xvi. ; and J. C. See also:Poggendorff, Biographisch-literarisches Handworterbuch. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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