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university. Her accomplishments were tremendous in her short but astonishing life.⠀

Born Sofia Korvin-Krukovskaya, in Moscow, she attributed her early aptitude for #calculus to a shortage of wallpaper, which lead her father to have the nursery papered with his old differential and integral analysis notes. Her parents nurtured her early interest in #math, and hired her a tutor. The local priest’s son introduced her to #nihilism. So both her bent for revolutionary politics and passion for math 2

were established early.⠀

Women in Russia were unable to go to university or leave the country without permission of their father or husband. Sympathetic men would participate in “fictitious marriages” so they could study abroad. She married a paleontology student, Vladimir Kovalevsky, later famous for collaborating with Charles Darwin. They emigrated; she enrolled in the German University of Heidelburg, then moved to Berlin & studied privately with Weierstrass. 3/n

In 1874, she presented 3 papers, on partial differential equations, dynamics of Saturn’s rings (as in my #linocut) & elliptic integrals as a doctoral dissertation at U of Göttingen. Weierstrass campaigned to allow her to defend her doctorate without usual required lectures and exams, arguing that each of these papers warranted a doctorate, & she graduated summa cum laude - the 1st woman in Germany to do so.⠀
⠀4/5

She won the Prix Bordin of the French Academy of Science.⠀
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Tragically, she died at 41, during the flu pandemic. Prizes, lectures & moon crater have been named in her honour.

https://minouette.etsy.com/listing/180234509

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