Sofia Kovalevskaya
#157318 Most Popular
About
After graduating from the University of Heidelberg, this Russian-born mathematician submitted a dissertation to the University of Göttingen in which she laid out an important mathematical concept that is now known as the Cauchy-Kovalevski theorem.
Before Fame
She decorated the walls of her childhood bedroom with mathematical formulas.
Trivia
She was the first Russian woman to earn an advanced degree in mathematics, to become a full professor, and to edit a scientific publication.
Family Life
She and her two siblings grew up in Moscow, Russia, as the children of Yelizaveta Fedorovna Schubert and Vasily Vasilyevich Korvin-Krukovsky. She later settled in Germany with her scientist husband, Vladimir Kovalevskij.
Associated With
In the early 1870s, she attended intellectual gatherings ("salons") held at the London home of the famous author George Eliot.
