Outstanding Personalities of Russia

outstanding personalities of Russia

1

Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (nee Korvin-Krukovskaya) is a Russian mathematician and mechanic, since 1889 a foreign corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. The world's first female professor of mathematics. 1

She was born on January 3 (15), 1850 in Moscow. 1 Daughter of Artillery Lieutenant General V. V. Korvin-Krukovsky and Elizabeth Feodorovna (maiden name - Schubert).

Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya

1

Sofia Kovalevskaya received her first lessons in arithmetic, geometry and algebra from her mentor Joseph Ignatievich Malevich, who taught almost the entire course of the men's gymnasium.

Physics professor N.N. Tyrtov, a neighbor on the estate, convinced her father of the need to study mathematics after Sofia began asking questions about trigonometry. In 1866, she moved to St. Petersburg and took lessons in mathematical analysis from Lieutenant A.N. Strannolyubsky. From 1869 she studied at the University of Heidelberg with Professor Leo Koenigsberger, and from 1870 to 1874 she continued her studies with K.T.V. Weierstrass in Berlin.

1

1

In 1868, Sofia Kovalevskaya married V.O. Kovalevsky, considering marriage as a way to go abroad to study. They had a daughter. In 1871, following socialist ideas, they left for besieged Paris, where Sophia helped her sister Anna and her husband in the Paris Commune.

1

1

In 1885, Kovalevskaya became the head of the Department of Mechanics at the university and began studying crystals. She also started solving the problem of rotating a solid body (top) around a fixed point.

To maintain interest in this problem, the Paris Academy of Sciences established a cash prize of three thousand francs for offering an improved solution to a problem that Kovalevskaya herself called the "mathematical mermaid".

In the same year, she was awarded the title of professor at Stockholm University, and in Russia became a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences.

There were new discoveries ahead. Sofia Kovalevskaya developed a theorem in the analytical theory of differential equations, studied the Laplace problem of the equilibrium of Saturn's rings, and studied celestial mechanics.

1

1

Sofia herself later admitted that scientific activity seemed destined for her long before her birth. According to Sonya's mother, in one of her dreams, a mysterious stranger appeared to her and announced that her daughter would soon become a great mathematician.

1

INTERESTING FACTS

• Sofia Kovalevskaya is the first woman in the world to receive the title of professor of mathematics.
• Her maternal grandfather was a famous mathematician, and her great-grandfather was an even more famous astronomer.
• Sofia Kovalevskaya's husband committed suicide. The reason for his unwise act was that he became completely entangled in his business affairs and fell into despair.
• Kovalevskaya believed in fate and its signs, believing that she inherited the gift of foresight from one of her great-grandmothers, a gypsy fortune teller.

1

1

• Kovalevskaya believed in fate and its signs, believing that she inherited the gift of foresight from one of her great-grandmothers, a gypsy fortune teller.

• In addition to mathematics, she was also interested in literature. Most of her stories are about Russia, which she longed for while in another country.

• According to family legend, Sophia Kovalevskaya's paternal family goes back to the Hungarian king Matthew Corvinus.

• She died of pneumonia, just like the famous scientists Lomonosov and Mendeleev.

1

1

in 1891, Sofia Kovalevskaya caught a cold and pneumonia began, she was strictly prescribed by doctors to lie in bed – but her health worsened.

January 29 (February 10), 1891 Sofia Kovalevskaya died in her sleep. She is buried in the North Cemetery in Stockholm, Sweden.

1

1

Thanks for your attention!

1