MATHEMATICIAN

Sofia Kovalevskaya

1850 - 1891

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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 earn 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. According to historian of science Ann Hibner Koblitz, Kovalevskaya was "the greatest known woman scientist before the twentieth century".: 255  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. Read more on Wikipedia

Her biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Sofia Kovalevskaya is the 60th most popular mathematician (down from 48th in 2019), the 105th most popular biography from Russia (down from 100th in 2019) and the 3rd most popular Russian Mathematician.

Sofia Kovalevskaya is most famous for being the first woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics. She was born in 1849 and received her degree from the University of Stockholm in 1874.

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Among MATHEMATICIANS

Among mathematicians, Sofia Kovalevskaya ranks 60 out of 1,004. Before her are Josef Stefan, Sophie Germain, Friedrich Bessel, Charles Sanders Peirce, Philolaus, and Karl Weierstrass. After her are Marin Mersenne, Émilie du Châtelet, Ludolph van Ceulen, Girard Desargues, Nikolai Lobachevsky, and Richard Dedekind.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1850, Sofia Kovalevskaya ranks 9. Before her are Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, Robert Louis Stevenson, Karl Ferdinand Braun, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Henry Louis Le Chatelier, and Edward Smith. After her are Eduard Bernstein, Hermann Ebbinghaus, Charles Richet, John Collier, Mihai Eminescu, and Pierre Loti. Among people deceased in 1891, Sofia Kovalevskaya ranks 12. Before her are John A. Macdonald, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, P. T. Barnum, Herman Melville, and Wilhelm Eduard Weber. After her are Léo Delibes, Theo van Gogh, Edmond Becquerel, Leopold Kronecker, Ivan Goncharov, and Jules Grévy.

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In Russia

Among people born in Russia, Sofia Kovalevskaya ranks 105 out of 3,761. Before her are Alexander Suvorov (1730), Mikhail Lomonosov (1711), Lev Kamenev (1883), Alexander Alekhine (1892), Nikolai Bukharin (1888), and Ilya Prigogine (1917). After her are Nikolai Yezhov (1895), Mikhail Bakhtin (1895), Mikhail Botvinnik (1911), Arnold Sommerfeld (1868), Tokhtamysh (1342), and Svetlana Alliluyeva (1926).

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Among MATHEMATICIANS In Russia

Among mathematicians born in Russia, Sofia Kovalevskaya ranks 3. Before her are David Hilbert (1862), and Georg Cantor (1845). After her are Nikolai Lobachevsky (1792), Andrey Kolmogorov (1903), Christian Goldbach (1690), Grigori Perelman (1966), Leonid Kantorovich (1912), Alexander Friedmann (1888), Andrey Markov (1856), Aleksandr Lyapunov (1857), and Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov (1943).

Russian born Mathematicians

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