SOFIA KRUKOVSKY KOVALEVSKAYA

Content Introduction Kovalevskaya’s Family Early Mathematical Training Higher Mathematical Training Cauchy-Kovalevskaya Theorem Prizes

Introduction Sophia Vasilievna Kovalevskaya (1850-1891) First major Russian female mathematician Analysis Differential equations Mechanics

Introduction First woman appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe. She was one of the first women to work for a scientific journal as an editor.

Kovalevskaya’s Family Kovalevskaya’s parents, Vasily Vasilievich Kriukovskoi and Elizaveta Fyodorovna Schubert were married on 29 January 1843. Kovalevskaya was born in Moscow on 15 January 1850

Early Mathematical Training Sonya turned her bright mind toward mathematics and biology. She was guess that the sine of a central angle is proportional to chord subtended by the angle.

Higher Mathematical Training Professor Weiersterass discovered her and from that moment the great mathematician became her friend for life With Weierstrass' support Sofia Kovalevskaya pursued a degree in mathematics, and her work earned her a doctorate from the University of Göttingen in 1874.

Cauchy-Kovalevskaya Theorem Her doctoral dissertation on partial differential equations is today called the Cauchy-Kovalevskaya Theorem. It so impressed the faculty that they awarded Kovalevskaya the doctorate without examination and without her having attended any classes at the university.

Cauchy-Kovalevskaya Theorem

After Sofia Kovalevskaya and her husband returned to Russia after she earned her doctorate. She began writing fiction novel Vera Barantzova.

Prizes In 1888 Sofia Kovalevskaya won the Prix Bordin from the French Academie Royale des Sciences for research now called the Kovelevskaya top. She also won a prize from the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1889, and that same year was appointed to a chair at the university - the first woman appointed to a chair at a modern European university. She was also elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences as a member that same year.

Finally She only published ten papers before her death from influenza in 1891, after a trip to Paris to see Maxim Kovalensky, a relative of her late husband with whom she was having a love affair.