fbpx
Wikipedia

Sofya Kovalevskaya

January 01, 1970

Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (Russian: Софья Васильевна Ковалевская), born Korvin-Krukovskaya (15 January [O.S. 3 January] 1850 – 10 February 1891), was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics. She was a pioneer for women in mathematics around the world – the first woman to obtain a doctorate (in the modern sense) in mathematics, the first woman appointed to a full professorship in northern Europe and one of the first women to work for a scientific journal as an editor.[1] According to historian of science Ann Hibner Koblitz, Kovalevskaya was "the greatest known woman scientist before the twentieth century".[2]: 255 

Sofya Kovalevskaya
Софья Ковалевская
Kovalevskaya in 1880
Born
Sofya Vasilyevna Korvin-Krukovskaya

(1850-01-15)15 January 1850
Moscow, Russia
Died10 February 1891(1891-02-10) (aged 41)
Stockholm, Sweden
Resting placeNorra begravningsplatsen
Other names
  • Sophie Kowalevski
  • Sophie Kowalevsky
Alma materUniversity of Göttingen (PhD)
Known for
SpouseVladimir Kovalevskij (m. 1868; died 1883)
ChildrenSofia (1878)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics, Mechanics
Institutions
Thesis (1874)
Doctoral advisorKarl Weierstrass

Historian of mathematics Roger Cooke writes:

... the more I reflect on her life and consider the magnitude of her achievements, set against the weight of the obstacles she had to overcome, the more I admire her. For me she has taken on a heroic stature achieved by very few other people in history. To venture, as she did, into academia, a world almost no woman had yet explored, and to be consequently the object of curious scrutiny, while a doubting society looked on, half-expecting her to fail, took tremendous courage and determination. To achieve, as she did, at least two major results of lasting value to scholarship, is evidence of a considerable talent, developed through iron discipline.[3]: 1 

Her sister was the socialist Anne Jaclard.

There are several alternative transliterations of her name. She herself used Sophie Kowalevski (or occasionally Kowalevsky) in her academic publications.

Background and early education edit

 
The excerpt from the 1850 birth register listing, in Russian Cyrillic, the birth of Sofia on January 3rd (Old Style date).

Sofya Kovalevskaya (née Korvin-Krukovskaya) was born in Moscow, the second of three children. Her father, Lieutenant General Vasily Vasilyevich Korvin-Krukovsky [ru], served in the Imperial Russian Army as head of the Moscow Artillery before retiring to Polibino, his family estate in Pskov Oblast in 1858, when Kovalevskaya was eight years old. He was a member of the minor nobility, of mixed (Bela)Russian–Polish descent (Polish on his father's side), with possible partial ancestry from the royal Corvin family of Hungary, and served as Marshall of Nobility for Vitebsk province. (There may also have been some Romani ancestry on the father's side.[4])

Her mother, Yelizaveta Fedorovna Shubert (Schubert), descended from a family of German immigrants to St. Petersburg who lived on Vasilievsky Island. Her maternal great-grandfather was the astronomer and geographer Friedrich Theodor Schubert (1758−1825), who emigrated to Russia from Germany around 1785. He became a full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Science and head of its astronomical observatory. His son, Kovalevskaya's maternal grandfather, was General Theodor Friedrich von Schubert (1789−1865), who was head of the military topographic service, and an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as Director of the Kunstkamera museum.

Kovalevskaya's parents provided her with a good early education. At various times, her governesses were native speakers of English, French, and German. When she was 11 years old, she was intrigued by a foretaste of what she was to learn later in her lessons in calculus; the wall of her room had been papered with pages from lecture notes by Ostrogradsky, left over from her father's student days.[5] She was tutored privately in elementary mathematics by Iosif Ignatevich Malevich.

The physicist Nikolai Nikanorovich Tyrtov noted her unusual aptitude when she managed to understand his textbook by discovering for herself an approximate construction of trigonometric functions which she had not yet encountered in her studies.[6] Tyrtov called her a "new Pascal" and suggested she be given a chance to pursue further studies under the tutelage of A. N. Strannoliubskii [ru].[7] In 1866-67 she spent much of the winter with her family in St. Petersburg, where she was provided private tutoring by Strannoliubskii, a well-known advocate of higher education for women, who taught her calculus. During that same period, the son of a local priest introduced her sister Anna to progressive ideas influenced by the radical movement of the 1860s, providing her with copies of radical journals of the time discussing Russian nihilism.[8]

Although the word nihilist (нигилист) often was used in a negative sense, it did not have that meaning for the young Russians of the 1860s (шестидесятники):

After the famous writer Ivan Turgenev used the word nihilist to refer to Bazarov, the young hero of his 1862 novel Fathers and Children, a certain segment of the "new people" adopted that name as well, despite its negative connotations in most quarters.... For the nihilists, science appeared to be the most effective means of helping the mass of people to a better life. Science pushed back the barriers of religion and superstition, and "proved" through the theory of evolution that (peaceful) social revolutions were the way of nature. For the early nihilists, science was virtually synonymous with truth, progress and radicalism; thus, the pursuit of a scientific career was viewed in no way as a hindrance to social activism. In fact, it was seen as a positive boost to progressive forces, an active blow against backwardness.[9]: 2–4 

Despite her obvious talent for mathematics, she could not complete her education in Russia. At that time, women were not allowed to attend universities in Russia and most other countries. In order to study abroad, Kovalevskaya needed written permission from her father (or husband). Accordingly, in 1868 she contracted a "fictitious marriage" with Vladimir Kovalevskij, a young paleontology student, book publisher and radical, who was the first to translate and publish the works of Charles Darwin in Russia. They moved from Russia to Germany in 1869, after a brief stay in Vienna, in order to pursue advanced studies.[10]

Student years edit

 
Kovalevskaya at 18 years

In April 1869, following Sofia's and Vladimir's brief stay in Vienna, where she attended lectures in physics at the university, they moved to Heidelberg. Through great efforts, she obtained permission to audit classes with the professors' approval at the University of Heidelberg. There she attended courses in physics and mathematics under such teachers as Hermann von Helmholtz, Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen.[2]: 87–89  Vladimir, meanwhile, went on to the University of Jena to pursue a doctorate in paleontology.

In October 1869, shortly after attending courses in Heidelberg, she visited London with Vladimir, who spent time with his colleagues Thomas Huxley and Charles Darwin, while she was invited to attend George Eliot's Sunday salons.[10] There, at age nineteen, she met Herbert Spencer and was led into a debate, at Eliot's instigation, on "woman's capacity for abstract thought". Although there is no record of the details of their conversation, she had just completed a lecture course in Heidelberg on mechanics, and she may just possibly have made mention of the Euler equations governing the motion of a rigid body (see following section). George Eliot was writing Middlemarch at the time, in which one finds the remarkable sentence: "In short, woman was a problem which, since Mr. Brooke's mind felt blank before it, could hardly be less complicated than the revolutions of an irregular solid."[11] This was well before she made her notable contribution of the "Kovalevskaya top" to the brief list of known examples of integrable rigid body motion (see following section).

In October 1870, Kovalevskaya moved to Berlin, where she began to take private lessons with Karl Weierstrass, since the university would not allow her even to audit classes. He was very impressed with her mathematical skills, and over the subsequent three years taught her the same material that comprised his lectures at the university.

In 1871 she briefly traveled to Paris together with Vladimir in order to help in the Paris Commune, where Kovalevskaya attended the injured and her sister Anyuta was active in the Commune.[2]: 104–106  With the fall of the Commune, however, both Anyuta and her common law husband Victor Jaclard, who was leader of the Montmartre contingent of the National Guard and a prominent Blanquiste, were arrested. Although Anyuta managed to escape to London, Jaclard was sentenced to execution. However, with the assistance of Sofia's and Anyuta's father General Krukovsky, who had come urgently to Paris to help Anyuta and who wrote to Adolphe Thiers asking for clemency, they managed to save Victor Jaclard.[2]: 107–108 

Kovalevskaya returned to Berlin and continued her studies with Weierstrass for three more years. In 1874 she presented three papers—on partial differential equations, on the dynamics of Saturn's rings, and on elliptic integrals—to the University of Göttingen as her doctoral dissertation. With the support of Weierstrass, this earned her a doctorate in mathematics summa cum laude, after Weierstrass succeeded in having her exempted from the usual oral examinations.[10]

Kovalevskaya thereby became the first woman to have been awarded a doctorate (in the modern sense of the word) in mathematics. Her paper on partial differential equations contains what is now commonly known as the Cauchy–Kovalevskaya theorem, which proves the existence and analyticity of local solutions to such equations under suitably defined initial/boundary conditions.

Last years in Germany and Sweden edit

 
Kovalevskaya in 1890
 
Kovalevskaya's grave, Norra begravningsplatsen

In 1874, Kovalevskaya and her husband Vladimir returned to Russia, but Vladimir failed to secure a professorship because of his radical beliefs. (Kovalevskaya never would have been considered for such a position because of her sex.) During this time they tried a variety of schemes to support themselves, including real estate development and involvement with an oil company. But in the late 1870s they developed financial problems, leading to bankruptcy.[12][2]

In 1875, for some unknown reason, perhaps the death of her father, Sofia and Vladimir decided to spend several years together as an actual married couple. Three years later their daughter, Sofia (called "Fufa"), was born. After almost two years devoted to raising her daughter, Kovalevskaya put Fufa under the care of relatives and friends, resumed her work in mathematics, and left Vladimir for what would be the last time.

Vladimir, who had always suffered severe mood swings, became more unstable. In 1883, faced with worsening mood swings and the possibility of being prosecuted for his role in a stock swindle, Vladimir committed suicide.[10]

That year, with the help of the mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler, whom she had known as a fellow student of Weierstrass, Kovalevskaya was able to secure a position as a privat-docent at Stockholm University in Sweden.[10] Kovalevskaya met Mittag-Leffler's sister, the actress, novelist, and playwright Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler. Until Kovalevskaya's death the two women shared a close friendship.[13]

In 1884 Kovalevskaya was appointed to a five-year position as Extraordinary Professor (assistant professor in modern terminology) and became an editor of Acta Mathematica. In 1888 she won the Prix Bordin of the French Academy of Science, for her work "Mémoire sur un cas particulier du problème de la rotation d'un corps pesant autour d'un point fixe, où l'intégration s'effectue à l'aide des fonctions ultraelliptiques du temps".[10][14] Her submission featured the celebrated discovery of what is now known as the "Kovalevskaya top", which was subsequently shown to be the only other case of rigid body motion that is "completely integrable" other than the tops of Euler and Lagrange.[15]

In 1889 Kovalevskaya was appointed Ordinary Professor (full professor) at Stockholm University, the first woman in Europe in modern times to hold such a position.[2]: 218  After much lobbying on her behalf (and a change in the Academy's rules) she was made a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but she was never offered a professorship in Russia.

Kovalevskaya, who was involved in the progressive political and feminist currents of late nineteenth-century Russian nihilism, wrote several non-mathematical works as well, including a memoir, A Russian Childhood, two plays (in collaboration with Duchess Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler) and a partly autobiographical novel, Nihilist Girl (1890).

In 1889, Kovalevskaya fell in love with Maxim Kovalevsky, a distant relation of her deceased husband,[16] but insisted on not marrying him because she would not be able to settle down and live with him.[3]: 18 

Kovalevskaya died of epidemic influenza complicated by pneumonia in 1891 at age forty-one, after returning from a vacation in Nice with Maxim.[2]: 231  She is buried in Solna, Sweden, at Norra begravningsplatsen.

Kovalevskaya's mathematical results, such as the Cauchy–Kowalevski theorem, and her pioneering role as a female mathematician in an almost exclusively male-dominated field, have made her the subject of several books, including a biography by Ann Hibner Koblitz,[2] a biography in Russian by Polubarinova-Kochina[17] (translated into English by M. Burov with the title Love and Mathematics: Sofya Kovalevskaya, Mir Publishers, 1985), and a book about her mathematics by R. Cooke.[10]

Tributes edit

Sonya Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day is a grant-making program of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), funding workshops across the United States which encourage girls to explore mathematics. While the AWM currently does not have grant money to support this program, multiple universities continue the program with their own funding.[18]

The Kovalevsky Lecture is sponsored annually by the AWM and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and is intended to highlight significant contributions of women in the fields of applied or computational mathematics.

The Kovalevskaia Fund, founded in 1985 with the purpose of supporting women in science in developing countries, was named in her honor.

The lunar crater Kovalevskaya is named in her honor.

A gymnasium in Velikiye Luki and a progymnasium in Vilnius are named after Sofya Kovalevskaya.

The Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation of Germany bestows a bi-annual Sofia Kovalevskaya Award to promising young researchers.

Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Stockholm have streets named in honor of Kovalevskaya.

On 30 June 2021, a satellite named after her (ÑuSat 22 or "Sofya", COSPAR 2021-059AS) was launched into space as part of the Satellogic Aleph-1 constellation.

In film edit

Kovalevskaya has been the subject of three film and TV biographies.

In fiction edit

  • Little Sparrow: A Portrait of Sophia Kovalevsky (1983), Don H. Kennedy, Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio ISBN 0821406922 LCCN 82-12405
  • Beyond the Limit: The Dream of Sofya Kovalevskaya (2002), ISBN 0765302330 LCCN 2002-24363, a biographical novel by mathematician and educator Joan Spicci, published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, is an historically accurate portrayal of her early married years and quest for an education. It is based in part on 88 of Kovalevskaya's letters, which the author translated from Russian to English.
    • 2021 ebook edition
  • Against the Day, a 2006 novel by Thomas Pynchon was speculated before release to be based on the life of Kovalevskaya, but in the finished novel she appears as a minor character.
  • "Too Much Happiness" (2009), short story by Alice Munro, published in the August 2009 issue of Harper's Magazine features Kovalevskaya as a main character. It was later published in a collection of the same name.

See also edit

Selected publications edit

Library resources about
Sofya Kovalevskaya
By Sofya Kovalevskaya
  • Kowalevski, Sophie (1875), "Zur Theorie der partiellen Differentialgleichung", Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik, 80: 1–32 (The surname given in the paper is "von Kowalevsky".)
  • Kowalevski, Sophie (1884), "Über die Reduction einer bestimmten Klasse Abel'scher Integrale 3ten Ranges auf elliptische Integrale", Acta Mathematica, 4 (1): 393–414, doi:10.1007/BF02418424
  • Kowalevski, Sophie (1885), "Über die Brechung des Lichtes In Cristallinischen Mitteln", Acta Mathematica, 6 (1): 249–304, doi:10.1007/BF02400418
  • Kowalevski, Sophie (1889), "Sur le probleme de la rotation d'un corps solide autour d'un point fixe", Acta Mathematica, 12 (1): 177–232, doi:10.1007/BF02592182
  • Kowalevski, Sophie (1890), "Sur une propriété du système d'équations différentielles qui définit la rotation d'un corps solide autour d'un point fixe", Acta Mathematica, 14 (1): 81–93, doi:10.1007/BF02413316
  • Kowalevski, Sophie (1891), "Sur un théorème de M. Bruns", Acta Mathematica, 15 (1): 45–52, doi:10.1007/BF02392602, S2CID 124051110
  • Kovalevskaya, Sofia (2021). Mathematician with the Soul of a Poet: Poems and Plays of Sofia Kovalevskaya. Translated by Coleman, Sandra DeLozier. Bohannon Hall Press. ISBN 979-8985029802.

Novel edit

  • Nihilist Girl, translated by Natasha Kolchevska with Mary Zirin; introduction by Natasha Kolchevska. Modern Language Association of America (2001) ISBN 0-87352-790-9

References edit

  1. ^ "Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya.". Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Koblitz, Ann Hibner (1993). A convergence of lives: Sofia Kovalevskaia: scientist, writer, revolutionary (Reprinted in hardcover. ed.). New Brunswick (New Jersey): Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813519630.
  3. ^ a b Roger L. Cooke, "The life of S. V. Kovalevskaya", in V. B. Kuznetsov, ed., The Kowalevski Property, American Mathematical Society, 2002, p. 1–19.
  4. ^ Marie-Louise Dubreil-Jacotin. . JOC/EFR. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved June 3, 2012.
  5. ^ . TRISTARMEDIA | Web Design, Web Development, Multimedia, Creative Web Solutions. Archived from the original on 3 September 2011. Retrieved 21 October 2011.
  6. ^ F. V. Korvin-Krukovskii, "Sofia Vasilevna Korvin-Krukovskaia," Russkaia Starina, vol. 71, no. 9 (1891), p. 623-636.
  7. ^ Rappaport, Karen D. "S. Kovalevsky: A Mathematical Lesson." The American Mathematical Monthly 88 (October 1981): 564-573.
  8. ^ Sofya Kovalevskaya, A Russian Childhood, translated, edited, and introduced by Beatrice Stillman; with an analysis of Kovalevskaya's Mathematics by P. Y. Kochina. Springer-Verlag, c1978 ISBN 0-387-90348-8
  9. ^ Ann Hibner Koblitz, Science, Women and Revolution in Russia, Routledge, 2000.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Roger Cooke, The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya, Springer-Verlag, 1984.
  11. ^ George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), Middlemarch, Chapter IV, last sentence.
  12. ^ Kochina, Pelageya (1985). Love and Mathematics: Sofia Kovalevskaya. Moscow: Mir Publisher.
  13. ^ McFadden, Margaret. Golden Cables of Sympathy: The Transatlantic Sources of Nineteenth-Century Feminism. University Press of Kentucky, 1999.
  14. ^ Sofʹja Vasilʹevna Kovalevskaja, Mémoire sur un cas particulier du problème de la rotation d'un corps pesant autour d'un point fixe où l'intégration s'effectue à l'aide de fonctions ultraelliptiques du temps, IMprimerie nationale, 1894
  15. ^ Cooke, Roger (1984). The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya. Springer. p. 159. ISBN 9781461297666.
  16. ^ Bruno, Leonard C. (2003) [1999]. Math and mathematicians : the history of math discoveries around the world. Baker, Lawrence W. Detroit, Mich.: U X L. p. 251. ISBN 0787638145. OCLC 41497065.
  17. ^ P. Ia. Polubarinova-Kochina, Sofia Vasilevna Kovalevskaia 1850-1891, Nauka, 1981.
  18. ^ . sites.google.com. Archived from the original on 2019-04-25. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
  19. ^ Sofya Kovalevskaya at IMDb  
  20. ^ Berget på månens baksida at IMDb  
  21. ^ Sofya Kovalevskaya at IMDb  

Further reading edit

 
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
An overview of Sofia Kovalevskaya's life and career.
 
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Kovalevsky, Sophie".
  • Cooke, Roger (1984).The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya (Springer-Verlag) ISBN 0-387-96030-9
  • Kennedy, Don H. (1983). Little Sparrow, a Portrait of Sofia Kovalevsky. Athens: Ohio University Press. ISBN 0-8214-0692-2
  • Koblitz, Ann Hibner (1993). A Convergence of Lives: Sofia Kovalevskaia -- Scientist, Writer, Revolutionary. Lives of women in science, 99-2518221-2 (2., revised ed.). New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. P. ISBN 0-8135-1962-4
  • Koblitz, Ann Hibner (1987). Sofia Vasilevna Kovalevskaia in Grinstein, Louise S.; Campbell, Paul J., eds. (1987), Women of Mathematics: A Bio-Bibliographic Sourcebook, Greenwood Press, New York, ISBN 978-0-313-24849-8
  • Porter, Cathy (1976). "Into Exile". Fathers and Daughters: Russian Women in Revolution. London: Virago Press. pp. 116–174. ISBN 0-704-32802-X. OCLC 2288139.
  • The Legacy of Sonya Kovalevskaya: proceedings of a symposium sponsored by the Association for Women in Mathematics and the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute, held October 25–28, 1985. Contemporary mathematics, 0271-4132; 64. Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society. 1987. ISBN 0-8218-5067-9
  • Sophie (Sonja) Vasiljevna Kovalevsky at Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon

This article incorporates material from Sofia Kovalevskaya on PlanetMath, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

External links edit

 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Sofya Kovalevskaya.

January 01, 1970
sofya, kovalevskaya, sofya, vasilyevna, kovalevskaya, russian, Софья, Васильевна, Ковалевская, born, korvin, krukovskaya, january, january, 1850, february, 1891, russian, mathematician, made, noteworthy, contributions, analysis, partial, differential, equation. Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya Russian Sofya Vasilevna Kovalevskaya born Korvin Krukovskaya 15 January O S 3 January 1850 10 February 1891 was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis partial differential equations and mechanics She was a pioneer for women in mathematics around the world the first woman to obtain a doctorate in the modern sense in mathematics the first woman appointed to a full professorship in northern Europe and one of the first women to work for a scientific journal as an editor 1 According to historian of science Ann Hibner Koblitz Kovalevskaya was the greatest known woman scientist before the twentieth century 2 255 Sofya KovalevskayaSofya KovalevskayaKovalevskaya in 1880BornSofya Vasilyevna Korvin Krukovskaya 1850 01 15 15 January 1850Moscow RussiaDied10 February 1891 1891 02 10 aged 41 Stockholm SwedenResting placeNorra begravningsplatsenOther namesSophie KowalevskiSophie KowalevskyAlma materUniversity of Gottingen PhD Known forCauchy Kowalevski theoremKovalevskaya topSpouseVladimir Kovalevskij m 1868 died 1883 ChildrenSofia 1878 Scientific careerFieldsMathematics MechanicsInstitutionsStockholm UniversityRussian Academy of SciencesThesis 1874 Doctoral advisorKarl Weierstrass Historian of mathematics Roger Cooke writes the more I reflect on her life and consider the magnitude of her achievements set against the weight of the obstacles she had to overcome the more I admire her For me she has taken on a heroic stature achieved by very few other people in history To venture as she did into academia a world almost no woman had yet explored and to be consequently the object of curious scrutiny while a doubting society looked on half expecting her to fail took tremendous courage and determination To achieve as she did at least two major results of lasting value to scholarship is evidence of a considerable talent developed through iron discipline 3 1 Her sister was the socialist Anne Jaclard There are several alternative transliterations of her name She herself used Sophie Kowalevski or occasionally Kowalevsky in her academic publications Contents 1 Background and early education 2 Student years 3 Last years in Germany and Sweden 4 Tributes 5 In film 6 In fiction 7 See also 8 Selected publications 9 Novel 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External linksBackground and early education edit nbsp The excerpt from the 1850 birth register listing in Russian Cyrillic the birth of Sofia on January 3rd Old Style date Sofya Kovalevskaya nee Korvin Krukovskaya was born in Moscow the second of three children Her father Lieutenant General Vasily Vasilyevich Korvin Krukovsky ru served in the Imperial Russian Army as head of the Moscow Artillery before retiring to Polibino his family estate in Pskov Oblast in 1858 when Kovalevskaya was eight years old He was a member of the minor nobility of mixed Bela Russian Polish descent Polish on his father s side with possible partial ancestry from the royal Corvin family of Hungary and served as Marshall of Nobility for Vitebsk province There may also have been some Romani ancestry on the father s side 4 Her mother Yelizaveta Fedorovna Shubert Schubert descended from a family of German immigrants to St Petersburg who lived on Vasilievsky Island Her maternal great grandfather was the astronomer and geographer Friedrich Theodor Schubert 1758 1825 who emigrated to Russia from Germany around 1785 He became a full member of the St Petersburg Academy of Science and head of its astronomical observatory His son Kovalevskaya s maternal grandfather was General Theodor Friedrich von Schubert 1789 1865 who was head of the military topographic service and an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences as well as Director of the Kunstkamera museum Kovalevskaya s parents provided her with a good early education At various times her governesses were native speakers of English French and German When she was 11 years old she was intrigued by a foretaste of what she was to learn later in her lessons in calculus the wall of her room had been papered with pages from lecture notes by Ostrogradsky left over from her father s student days 5 She was tutored privately in elementary mathematics by Iosif Ignatevich Malevich The physicist Nikolai Nikanorovich Tyrtov noted her unusual aptitude when she managed to understand his textbook by discovering for herself an approximate construction of trigonometric functions which she had not yet encountered in her studies 6 Tyrtov called her a new Pascal and suggested she be given a chance to pursue further studies under the tutelage of A N Strannoliubskii ru 7 In 1866 67 she spent much of the winter with her family in St Petersburg where she was provided private tutoring by Strannoliubskii a well known advocate of higher education for women who taught her calculus During that same period the son of a local priest introduced her sister Anna to progressive ideas influenced by the radical movement of the 1860s providing her with copies of radical journals of the time discussing Russian nihilism 8 Although the word nihilist nigilist often was used in a negative sense it did not have that meaning for the young Russians of the 1860s shestidesyatniki After the famous writer Ivan Turgenev used the word nihilist to refer to Bazarov the young hero of his 1862 novel Fathers and Children a certain segment of the new people adopted that name as well despite its negative connotations in most quarters For the nihilists science appeared to be the most effective means of helping the mass of people to a better life Science pushed back the barriers of religion and superstition and proved through the theory of evolution that peaceful social revolutions were the way of nature For the early nihilists science was virtually synonymous with truth progress and radicalism thus the pursuit of a scientific career was viewed in no way as a hindrance to social activism In fact it was seen as a positive boost to progressive forces an active blow against backwardness 9 2 4 Despite her obvious talent for mathematics she could not complete her education in Russia At that time women were not allowed to attend universities in Russia and most other countries In order to study abroad Kovalevskaya needed written permission from her father or husband Accordingly in 1868 she contracted a fictitious marriage with Vladimir Kovalevskij a young paleontology student book publisher and radical who was the first to translate and publish the works of Charles Darwin in Russia They moved from Russia to Germany in 1869 after a brief stay in Vienna in order to pursue advanced studies 10 Student years edit nbsp Kovalevskaya at 18 years In April 1869 following Sofia s and Vladimir s brief stay in Vienna where she attended lectures in physics at the university they moved to Heidelberg Through great efforts she obtained permission to audit classes with the professors approval at the University of Heidelberg There she attended courses in physics and mathematics under such teachers as Hermann von Helmholtz Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen 2 87 89 Vladimir meanwhile went on to the University of Jena to pursue a doctorate in paleontology In October 1869 shortly after attending courses in Heidelberg she visited London with Vladimir who spent time with his colleagues Thomas Huxley and Charles Darwin while she was invited to attend George Eliot s Sunday salons 10 There at age nineteen she met Herbert Spencer and was led into a debate at Eliot s instigation on woman s capacity for abstract thought Although there is no record of the details of their conversation she had just completed a lecture course in Heidelberg on mechanics and she may just possibly have made mention of the Euler equations governing the motion of a rigid body see following section George Eliot was writing Middlemarch at the time in which one finds the remarkable sentence In short woman was a problem which since Mr Brooke s mind felt blank before it could hardly be less complicated than the revolutions of an irregular solid 11 This was well before she made her notable contribution of the Kovalevskaya top to the brief list of known examples of integrable rigid body motion see following section In October 1870 Kovalevskaya moved to Berlin where she began to take private lessons with Karl Weierstrass since the university would not allow her even to audit classes He was very impressed with her mathematical skills and over the subsequent three years taught her the same material that comprised his lectures at the university In 1871 she briefly traveled to Paris together with Vladimir in order to help in the Paris Commune where Kovalevskaya attended the injured and her sister Anyuta was active in the Commune 2 104 106 With the fall of the Commune however both Anyuta and her common law husband Victor Jaclard who was leader of the Montmartre contingent of the National Guard and a prominent Blanquiste were arrested Although Anyuta managed to escape to London Jaclard was sentenced to execution However with the assistance of Sofia s and Anyuta s father General Krukovsky who had come urgently to Paris to help Anyuta and who wrote to Adolphe Thiers asking for clemency they managed to save Victor Jaclard 2 107 108 Kovalevskaya returned to Berlin and continued her studies with Weierstrass for three more years In 1874 she presented three papers on partial differential equations on the dynamics of Saturn s rings and on elliptic integrals to the University of Gottingen as her doctoral dissertation With the support of Weierstrass this earned her a doctorate in mathematics summa cum laude after Weierstrass succeeded in having her exempted from the usual oral examinations 10 Kovalevskaya thereby became the first woman to have been awarded a doctorate in the modern sense of the word in mathematics Her paper on partial differential equations contains what is now commonly known as the Cauchy Kovalevskaya theorem which proves the existence and analyticity of local solutions to such equations under suitably defined initial boundary conditions Last years in Germany and Sweden edit nbsp Kovalevskaya in 1890 nbsp Kovalevskaya s grave Norra begravningsplatsen In 1874 Kovalevskaya and her husband Vladimir returned to Russia but Vladimir failed to secure a professorship because of his radical beliefs Kovalevskaya never would have been considered for such a position because of her sex During this time they tried a variety of schemes to support themselves including real estate development and involvement with an oil company But in the late 1870s they developed financial problems leading to bankruptcy 12 2 In 1875 for some unknown reason perhaps the death of her father Sofia and Vladimir decided to spend several years together as an actual married couple Three years later their daughter Sofia called Fufa was born After almost two years devoted to raising her daughter Kovalevskaya put Fufa under the care of relatives and friends resumed her work in mathematics and left Vladimir for what would be the last time Vladimir who had always suffered severe mood swings became more unstable In 1883 faced with worsening mood swings and the possibility of being prosecuted for his role in a stock swindle Vladimir committed suicide 10 That year with the help of the mathematician Gosta Mittag Leffler whom she had known as a fellow student of Weierstrass Kovalevskaya was able to secure a position as a privat docent at Stockholm University in Sweden 10 Kovalevskaya met Mittag Leffler s sister the actress novelist and playwright Anne Charlotte Edgren Leffler Until Kovalevskaya s death the two women shared a close friendship 13 In 1884 Kovalevskaya was appointed to a five year position as Extraordinary Professor assistant professor in modern terminology and became an editor of Acta Mathematica In 1888 she won the Prix Bordin of the French Academy of Science for her work Memoire sur un cas particulier du probleme de la rotation d un corps pesant autour d un point fixe ou l integration s effectue a l aide des fonctions ultraelliptiques du temps 10 14 Her submission featured the celebrated discovery of what is now known as the Kovalevskaya top which was subsequently shown to be the only other case of rigid body motion that is completely integrable other than the tops of Euler and Lagrange 15 In 1889 Kovalevskaya was appointed Ordinary Professor full professor at Stockholm University the first woman in Europe in modern times to hold such a position 2 218 After much lobbying on her behalf and a change in the Academy s rules she was made a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences but she was never offered a professorship in Russia Kovalevskaya who was involved in the progressive political and feminist currents of late nineteenth century Russian nihilism wrote several non mathematical works as well including a memoir A Russian Childhood two plays in collaboration with Duchess Anne Charlotte Edgren Leffler and a partly autobiographical novel Nihilist Girl 1890 In 1889 Kovalevskaya fell in love with Maxim Kovalevsky a distant relation of her deceased husband 16 but insisted on not marrying him because she would not be able to settle down and live with him 3 18 Kovalevskaya died of epidemic influenza complicated by pneumonia in 1891 at age forty one after returning from a vacation in Nice with Maxim 2 231 She is buried in Solna Sweden at Norra begravningsplatsen Kovalevskaya s mathematical results such as the Cauchy Kowalevski theorem and her pioneering role as a female mathematician in an almost exclusively male dominated field have made her the subject of several books including a biography by Ann Hibner Koblitz 2 a biography in Russian by Polubarinova Kochina 17 translated into English by M Burov with the title Love and Mathematics Sofya Kovalevskaya Mir Publishers 1985 and a book about her mathematics by R Cooke 10 Tributes editSonya Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day is a grant making program of the Association for Women in Mathematics AWM funding workshops across the United States which encourage girls to explore mathematics While the AWM currently does not have grant money to support this program multiple universities continue the program with their own funding 18 The Kovalevsky Lecture is sponsored annually by the AWM and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and is intended to highlight significant contributions of women in the fields of applied or computational mathematics The Kovalevskaia Fund founded in 1985 with the purpose of supporting women in science in developing countries was named in her honor The lunar crater Kovalevskaya is named in her honor A gymnasium in Velikiye Luki and a progymnasium in Vilnius are named after Sofya Kovalevskaya The Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation of Germany bestows a bi annual Sofia Kovalevskaya Award to promising young researchers Saint Petersburg Moscow and Stockholm have streets named in honor of Kovalevskaya On 30 June 2021 a satellite named after her NuSat 22 or Sofya COSPAR 2021 059AS was launched into space as part of the Satellogic Aleph 1 constellation nbsp Bust by Finnish sculptor Walter Runeberg nbsp Commemorative coin 2000 nbsp Soviet Union postage stamp 1951In film editKovalevskaya has been the subject of three film and TV biographies Sofya Kovalevskaya 1956 directed by Iosef Shapiro starring Yelena Yunger Lev Kolesov and Tatyana Sezenyevskaya 19 Berget pa manens baksida A Hill on the Dark Side of the Moon 1983 directed by Lennart Hjulstrom starring Gunilla Nyroos as Sofja Kovalewsky and Bibi Andersson as Anne Charlotte Edgren Leffler Duchess of Cajanello and sister to Gosta Mittag Leffler 20 Sofya Kovalevskaya 1985 TV directed by Azerbaijani director Ayan Shakhmaliyeva starring Yelena Safonova as Sofia 21 In fiction editLittle Sparrow A Portrait of Sophia Kovalevsky 1983 Don H Kennedy Ohio University Press Athens Ohio ISBN 0821406922 LCCN 82 12405 Beyond the Limit The Dream of Sofya Kovalevskaya 2002 ISBN 0765302330 LCCN 2002 24363 a biographical novel by mathematician and educator Joan Spicci published by Tom Doherty Associates LLC is an historically accurate portrayal of her early married years and quest for an education It is based in part on 88 of Kovalevskaya s letters which the author translated from Russian to English 2021 ebook edition Against the Day a 2006 novel by Thomas Pynchon was speculated before release to be based on the life of Kovalevskaya but in the finished novel she appears as a minor character Too Much Happiness 2009 short story by Alice Munro published in the August 2009 issue of Harper s Magazine features Kovalevskaya as a main character It was later published in a collection of the same name See also editCauchy Kowalevski theorem Kowalevski top Timeline of women in science Timeline of women in mathematicsSelected publications editLibrary resources about Sofya Kovalevskaya Online books Resources in your library Resources in other libraries By Sofya Kovalevskaya Online books Resources in your library Resources in other libraries Kowalevski Sophie 1875 Zur Theorie der partiellen Differentialgleichung Journal fur die reine und angewandte Mathematik 80 1 32 The surname given in the paper is von Kowalevsky Kowalevski Sophie 1884 Uber die Reduction einer bestimmten Klasse Abel scher Integrale 3ten Ranges auf elliptische Integrale Acta Mathematica 4 1 393 414 doi 10 1007 BF02418424 Kowalevski Sophie 1885 Uber die Brechung des Lichtes In Cristallinischen Mitteln Acta Mathematica 6 1 249 304 doi 10 1007 BF02400418 Kowalevski Sophie 1889 Sur le probleme de la rotation d un corps solide autour d un point fixe Acta Mathematica 12 1 177 232 doi 10 1007 BF02592182 Kowalevski Sophie 1890 Sur une propriete du systeme d equations differentielles qui definit la rotation d un corps solide autour d un point fixe Acta Mathematica 14 1 81 93 doi 10 1007 BF02413316 Kowalevski Sophie 1891 Sur un theoreme de M Bruns Acta Mathematica 15 1 45 52 doi 10 1007 BF02392602 S2CID 124051110 Kovalevskaya Sofia 2021 Mathematician with the Soul of a Poet Poems and Plays of Sofia Kovalevskaya Translated by Coleman Sandra DeLozier Bohannon Hall Press ISBN 979 8985029802 Novel editNihilist Girl translated by Natasha Kolchevska with Mary Zirin introduction by Natasha Kolchevska Modern Language Association of America 2001 ISBN 0 87352 790 9References edit Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved 22 October 2011 a b c d e f g h Koblitz Ann Hibner 1993 A convergence of lives Sofia Kovalevskaia scientist writer revolutionary Reprinted in hardcover ed New Brunswick New Jersey Rutgers University Press ISBN 9780813519630 a b Roger L Cooke The life of S V Kovalevskaya in V B Kuznetsov ed The Kowalevski Property American Mathematical Society 2002 p 1 19 Marie Louise Dubreil Jacotin Women mathematicians JOC EFR Archived from the original on June 7 2011 Retrieved June 3 2012 Best of Russia Famous Russians Scientists TRISTARMEDIA Web Design Web Development Multimedia Creative Web Solutions Archived from the original on 3 September 2011 Retrieved 21 October 2011 F V Korvin Krukovskii Sofia Vasilevna Korvin Krukovskaia Russkaia Starina vol 71 no 9 1891 p 623 636 Rappaport Karen D S Kovalevsky A Mathematical Lesson The American Mathematical Monthly 88 October 1981 564 573 Sofya Kovalevskaya A Russian Childhood translated edited and introduced by Beatrice Stillman with an analysis of Kovalevskaya s Mathematics by P Y Kochina Springer Verlag c1978 ISBN 0 387 90348 8 Ann Hibner Koblitz Science Women and Revolution in Russia Routledge 2000 a b c d e f g Roger Cooke The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya Springer Verlag 1984 George Eliot Mary Ann Evans Middlemarch Chapter IV last sentence Kochina Pelageya 1985 Love and Mathematics Sofia Kovalevskaya Moscow Mir Publisher McFadden Margaret Golden Cables of Sympathy The Transatlantic Sources of Nineteenth Century Feminism University Press of Kentucky 1999 Sofʹja Vasilʹevna Kovalevskaja Memoire sur un cas particulier du probleme de la rotation d un corps pesant autour d un point fixe ou l integration s effectue a l aide de fonctions ultraelliptiques du temps IMprimerie nationale 1894 Cooke Roger 1984 The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya Springer p 159 ISBN 9781461297666 Bruno Leonard C 2003 1999 Math and mathematicians the history of math discoveries around the world Baker Lawrence W Detroit Mich U X L p 251 ISBN 0787638145 OCLC 41497065 P Ia Polubarinova Kochina Sofia Vasilevna Kovalevskaia 1850 1891 Nauka 1981 Kovalevsky Days AWM Association for Women in Mathematics sites google com Archived from the original on 2019 04 25 Retrieved 2018 08 21 Sofya Kovalevskaya at IMDb nbsp Berget pa manens baksida at IMDb nbsp Sofya Kovalevskaya at IMDb nbsp Further reading edit nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article An overview of Sofia Kovalevskaya s life and career nbsp Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica article Kovalevsky Sophie Cooke Roger 1984 The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya Springer Verlag ISBN 0 387 96030 9 Kennedy Don H 1983 Little Sparrow a Portrait of Sofia Kovalevsky Athens Ohio University Press ISBN 0 8214 0692 2 Koblitz Ann Hibner 1993 A Convergence of Lives Sofia Kovalevskaia Scientist Writer Revolutionary Lives of women in science 99 2518221 2 2 revised ed New Brunswick N J Rutgers Univ P ISBN 0 8135 1962 4 Koblitz Ann Hibner 1987 Sofia Vasilevna Kovalevskaia in Grinstein Louise S Campbell Paul J eds 1987 Women of Mathematics A Bio Bibliographic Sourcebook Greenwood Press New York ISBN 978 0 313 24849 8 Porter Cathy 1976 Into Exile Fathers and Daughters Russian Women in Revolution London Virago Press pp 116 174 ISBN 0 704 32802 X OCLC 2288139 The Legacy of Sonya Kovalevskaya proceedings of a symposium sponsored by the Association for Women in Mathematics and the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute held October 25 28 1985 Contemporary mathematics 0271 4132 64 Providence R I American Mathematical Society 1987 ISBN 0 8218 5067 9 Sophie Sonja Vasiljevna Kovalevsky at Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon This article incorporates material from Sofia Kovalevskaya on PlanetMath which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License External links edit nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Sofya Kovalevskaya Sofia Kovalevskaya Biographies of Women Mathematicians Agnes Scott College O Connor John J Robertson Edmund F Sofya Kovalevskaya MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive University of St Andrews Women s History Sofia Kovalevskaya Archived 2009 02 09 at the Wayback Machine Brief biography of Sofia Kovalevskaya by Yuriy Belits University of Colorado at Denver March 17 2005 Biography in Russian Association for Women in Mathematics Archived 2011 05 05 at the Wayback Machine Sof i Kovalevskoy street Saint Petersburg OpenStreetMap Sof i Kovalevskoy street Moscow OpenStreetMap Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Sofya Kovalevskaya amp oldid 1218614568, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.