SOFIA KOVALEVSKAYA |
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(1850-1891) PLAYWRIGHT AUGUST STRINDBERG CALLED HER A MONSTROSITY, BUT THIS DAUGHTER OF 19TH CENTURY RUSSIAN NOBILITY REACHED GREAT MATHEMATICAL HEIGHTS. AND TODAY SHE'S IMMORTALIZED ON THE MOON.
11 year old Sofia Kovalevskaya was fascinated by her bedroom wallpaper. The walls in the nursery of her upper class Moscow home were papered with her fathers old calculus notes, and she studied them intently. Sofia was introduced to math by her uncle. At 14, she taught herself trigonometry to understand a book on physics. Her parents provided tutors but university was forbidden to women in Russia, and her father refused to allow her to study abroad. So the practical Sofia entered into a marriage of convenience allowing her to travel and pursue her studies. Denied admission to Heidelberg University, she convinced professors to allow her to attend lectures. Then the great mathematician Weierstrauss recognized her genius and took her on as his private student.
By 1874, Sophia had become famous in Germany. She published four groundbreaking papers and earned a PhD. She gave birth to a daughter, and gave up her work. When her husband died six years later she immersed herself in mathematics once again. The University of Stockholm offered her a teaching post. She gained many admirers. But Swedish author August Strindberg declared, 'She proves as decidedly as two and two make four what a monstrosity a woman professor of mathematics is.' Strindberg recanted after the French Academy of Sciences awarded her the prestigious Prix Bordin for her work on motion. Her paper was so brilliant the prize money was increased from 3 to 5 thousand francs.
Sophia died of pneumonia at 41. She left behind ten groundbreaking papers, mathematical physics, and an invention called the Kovalevskaya top...still used to study the dynamics of motion. A star and a lunar crater were named Kovelvskya-in her honor.
For more information, please visit:
http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/kova.htm
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