Today in the section of women scientists we are going to talk about a math whose work earned him the first woman to hold a job Professor at a European University.
Is about Kovalevskaya sofa, a Russian who not only had to deal with her womanhoodbut also with the fact be gypsy, although neither obstacle was able to stop his career.
Therefore, his tenacity earned him several professional achievements that today we want to tell you, to make you see that the most important thing to achieve our objectives is never give up.
Sofa Kovalvskaya Biography
Sofia-Kovalevskaya-resized
Couch I was born in 1850 within a gypsy russian family. In addition it was also descendant of Matas Corvino, the King of Hungra, but he could never enjoy the privileges that correspond to him because his grandfather was disinherited for marrying a gypsy.
Despite everything, his family had enough economic power to give him a good academic training from the hand of a personal tutor. She started out being passionate about poetry, but little by little she was also awakening a great interest in mathematics.
So he began to focus his studies on them until his father, who did not concede the idea of a mathematical woman, prevented her from further training in the subject.
However, the young woman did not give up and continued learning sneaking reading algebra books what borrowed. In this way, a great skill for mathematics was forged that did not go unnoticed by a teacher; that, after several years, managed to convince his father to allow him to study them.
That is how they began their studies, first through tutorials and later at the University, where he finished his mathematics degree and also carried out three doctorates, two on mathematics and one on astronomy.
Sofa Kovalvskaya’s scientific career
Through his studies he solved some problems that had led to major headaches for some of the most important mathematicians of the time. In addition, two of his works, called On the theory of differential equations and On the rotation of a solid body around a fixed point, were very influential in the scholars of the time, even obtaining the prize of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, for the completion of the second.
But her greatest satisfaction was her teaching position at the Stockholm University, since with him she became the first woman in holding a teaching position at a European university center.
After his death, which came to him from the flu at the young age of forty-one, he has received other many recognitions and you may still get many more. And it is that so much effort and so much passion for science would not be for less.
