Sofia Kovalevskaya
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| Sofia Kovalevskaya | |
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| Born | 15 January 1850 Moscow, Russia |
| Died | 10 February 1891 Stockholm, Sweden |
Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (Russian Софья Васильевна Ковалевская), also known as Sonia Kovalevsky (January 15, 1850-February 10, 1891), was the first major Russian female mathematician and a student of Karl Weierstrass in Berlin. In 1884 she was appointed professor at Stockholm University, the third woman in Europe to become a professor.
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[edit] Early years
Kovalevskaya was born in Moscow, Russia. Her father was Vasily Vasilievich Krukovsky (1800-1874), an artillery officer of Polish descent, later a general and commander of the Kremlin arsenal. Krukovsky was a distant descendant of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus. Her mother, Elizaveta Fyodorovna Schubert (1820-1879), was the granddaughter of Theodor Schubert, also known as Fyodor Ivanovich Schubert, mathematician and astronomer of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
Sofia's family background and childhood influenced her interest in mathematics. Her father, who had studied calculus in the army, used lithographed notes from lectures by Ostrogradsky when they ran short of proper wallpaper for one house, and Sofia spent many hours as a child scrutinising the strange scribbles and when she later studied calculus it came to her very quickly.
She was close to her uncle, Pyotr Vasilievich Krukovsky, a self-taught eccentric with a fondness for mathematics.
While reading a book on optics given to her by a family friend, she came across trigonometric concepts unfamiliar to her, which she attempted to work out on her own. She did this in the same manner it had been done historically, and the friend was so impressed he persuaded Sophia's father to let her take private mathematical study, calling her "a new Pascal."
Kovalevskaya was romantically attracted to Fyodor Dostoevsky and practiced his favourite piano work, Beethoven's Pathetique sonata, to get his attention, but he was interested in her older sister Anna, and is thought to have proposed to her.
[edit] Marriage and study abroad
The legal system of the time did not allow women to have their own passports to travel. Women could only travel by permission of their father or husband. Sofia's father was not sold on the idea of her and her sister Anna studying abroad, so the only "solution" was to enter into a fictitious marriage. Once one of the sisters was married, her husband could legally take both women to Europe and let them study there. The sisters found a suitor, Vladimir Kovalevski, who later became a paleontologist, and with some trickery Sofia and Vladimir wed with Sofia father’s approval in September of 1868. The couple’s relationship was said ”to have resembled a preadolescent’s fantasy.” Later it became a genuine marriage, and on 17 October, 1878, at the age of twenty-eight, Sofia gave birth to a daughter who was also named Sofia (nicknamed Fufa).
In May of 1869 Sofia and Vladimir arrived in Heidelberg, Germany where Sofia enrolled as a provisional student at Heidelberg University. Sofia studied physics with Gustav Kirchhoff, physiology with Hermann von Helmholtz and mathematics with Leo Königsberger and Paul DuBois-Reymond, both of whom were students of Karl Weierstrass.
In October 1870 Sofia arrived in Berlin, hoping to enroll in the Berlin University and to study with Karl Weierstrass. On the first meeting, Weierstrass was amazed at her request, and just to be fair gave her a set of problems to solve. He was amazed once again when Sofia came back a week later with correct solutions to all the problems. However, Weierstrass' attempt to enroll Sofia in the Berlin University was unsuccessful due to long tradition and staunch opposition from the faculty and administration. Weierstrass saw the potential in his new student and agreed to give Sofia private lessons twice a week. The lessons lasted four years.
In 1871 Sofia and Vladimir Kovalevski managed to sneak into Paris, through German occupation during the Franco-Prussian War. At that time Sofia’s sister Anna was involved in revolutionary activity during the brief rule of the Paris Commune. Sofia took part, helping at the hospital treating the wounded, but after six weeks returned to Berlin to continue her mathematical research. When the Paris Commune fell and massive executions took place in Paris, Anna managed to flee to London with Sofia and Vladimir’s help. In London Anna received help from Karl Marx, and later translated Karl Marx's works into Russian.
[edit] Scientific work
In 1874, in her absence, the University of Goettingen, with the support of Karl Weierstrass, granted Kovalevskaya PhD in Mathematics and Master of Fine Arts degrees summa cum laude for the cycle of three papers, which included important work on the theory of partial differential equation and its applications to the study of the shape of rings of Saturn. This was the first doctorate awarded to a woman. In the same year she returned to Russia, but failed to get a job at the St Petersburg University.
Kovalevskaya then suspended her scientific work for six years in favor of literary work. She turned her attention to the social life of St. Petersburg, living the life of a society lady. She wrote theatrical reviews, science reports for newspapers, and fiction. Mathematically she was isolated in Russia in part because of Weierstrass' influence. Weierstrass was an apologist of analysis for analysis' sake, while Russian mathematicians put emphasis on grounding in practical problems. The only Russian mathematician willing to listen to Kovalevskaya ideas was Chebyshev.
Seeking financial independence to pursue their academic interests, Vladimir and Sofia invested money in a real estate and construction business, but the interest payments on their loans were higher than the profits and the endeavor ended in bankruptcy. The bankruptcy negatively affected Vladimir's mental health but Sofia, after a self-evaluation of her "social lady" status, was appalled at her intellectual stagnation and decided to return to her original goal of mathematical research.
In 1880, Kovalevskaya moved to Moscow but was not allowed to take an examination for the Masters degree in the university. A year later she left Moscow for Berlin and then Paris, trying to get a professor's job there. She produced some notable work during this period, in particular on the refraction of light, but her husband Vladimir's suicide, in 1883, left her alone and with feelings of guilt. She immersed herself further in the study of mathematics, and the following year, with the help of Gösta Mittag-Leffler, she finally received a permanent position, followed by a professor's chair, at the newly founded University College in Stockholm.
Kovalevskaya's years in Stockholm were perhaps her most productive. She essentially completed the study of rotating solids, applying the then-new theory of Abelian functions and thus "justifying" the enormous effort that had been put into the theory. For this study, namely for the paper On the Rotation of a Solid Body about a Fixed Point, Kovalevskaya was awarded a special prize by the Paris Academy of Science in 1888. In the next year she was awarded a prize by the Swedish Academy of Science for her second work on this subject. In 1889 she became the first female Correspondent Member of St. Petersburg Academy of Science, being elected there on the initiative of Pafnuty Chebyshev and others.
Kovalevskaya died of influenza, complicated by pneumonia in 1891, in Stockholm and is buried in the Norra begravningsplatsen.
There were two biographical movies released about her in the USSR in 1956 and in 1985.
Some of her scientific works include:
- Acta Mathematica (1885)
- Mémoire sur un cas particulier du problème de la rotation d'un corps pesant autour d'un point fixe, ou l'intégration s'effectue à l'aide des fonctions ultraelliptiques du temps (1886)
- The short article Sur un théorème de M. Bruns (1891)
[edit] Namesake events
Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day and the Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture are annual events sponsored by the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), the largest organization of women mathematicians in the United States. The lectureship named for Kovalevsky is an honor awarded to a prominent woman in mathematics, science, or engineering; the lecture is usually given at the national meeting of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Past honorees have included Daubechies (2005), McLaughlin (2004), and Petzold (2003). The high school program named for Kovalevsky is now a grant-making intitiative of the AWM, funding workshops around the country that invite girls to explore mathematics.
Contemporary scientists have a very high regard for Kovalevskaya and have paid tribute by naming a crater on the Moon after her.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Roger Cooke: The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya (Springer-Verlag, 1984)
- Sofya Kovalevskaya: A Russian Childhood (Springer-Verlag, 1978; translated and introduced by Beatrice Stillman)
- Ann Hibner Koblitz: A Convergence of Lives: Sofia Kovalevskaia -- Scientist, Writer, Revolutionary (Rutgers University Press, 1983)
[edit] External links
- Sofia Kovalevskaya at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- O'Connor, John J., and Edmund F. Robertson. "Sofia Kovalevskaya". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
- Women's History - Sofia Kovalevskaya
- Brief biography of Sofia Kovalevskaya by Yuriy Belits. University of Colorado at Denver, March 17, 2005.
- Biography (in Russian)
- Association for Women in Mathematics
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kovalevskaya, Sofia Vasilyevna |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ковалевская, Софья Васильевна (Russian) |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | First major Russian female mathematician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 15, 1850 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Moscow, Russia |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 10, 1891 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Stockholm, Sweden |
