WOMEN AND SCIENCE

Women and Science

Women and Science

Soyna Korvin-Krukovsky was born in 1850 in Moscow to a family of the minor nobility because her father was a artillery general. As a child she became exposed to mathematics from wallpaper. Her house as a child was getting renovated, and one of her siblings' rooms was temporarily wallpapered with lithographed notes of Ostrogradski's lecture notes on differential and integral calculus. Sonya would spend hours looking at the wallpaper, trying to decide which order the sheets belonged in, trying to decipher each and every phrase on the wall. Her father had her educated by a professor at the naval academy, and math just came easy to her.

In Russia, it was ludicrous for women to seek higher education, because Russia felt they did not deserve the same post-school training as men. However, if women married, they could attend universities outside of Russia, and that is exactly what Sonya did. In 1868 Sonya married Vladimir Kovalevsky, and together they went to Germany to study. In Germany Sonya studied with Weierstrass, who claimed that she had "the gift of intuitive genius." Unfortunately, Sonya could not study at the University of Berling with Weirestrass, so he privately tutored her for four years. She wrote outstanding research papers, and through her research, she qualified for a doctorate without the need of an examination. Alas, Sonya received a higher degree in mathematics with high honor!

On the 1st of October 1868, Sofia and Vladimir celebrated their wedding. Sofia's parents did not realize the real reasons behind the union, as the young couple headed off to St Petersburg right away, and from there to Germany, so that Vladimir could take up paleontology, and Sofia could study mathematics at Heidelberg University. Professors at the local university deliberated for quite some time as to ...