Sofia KovalevskayaDied 10 Feb 1891 at age 41 (born 15 Jan 1850). Russian mathematician and novelist who was the first major female Russian educated in the subject. She wrote that she was immersed from an early age: while just age 11, the walls of her nursery were papered with pages of calculus lecture notes, (said to be due to a shortage of wallpaper) from which she learned For university studies, she could only attend lectures unofficially, since women were not allowed to matriculate at Heidelberg. Nevertheless, by 1889, she became the first female full professor in Europe. She made valuable contributions to the theory of differential equations. At the early age of 41, while still at the peak of her mathematical ability and renown, Kovalevskaya died of influenza complicated by pneumonia.«a.k.a. Sofya, Sonya or Sophie, and as Kovalevsky. |
