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Mathematical Treasure: Sofia Kovalevskaya’s Article on Partial Differential Equations

Author(s): 
Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University)

Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891) was a Russian-born woman mathematician who entered into a marriage of convenience in order to study mathematics. Desiring advanced training, she moved to Germany, where she studied mathematics under Karl Weierstrauss. Highly recognized for her work in analysis, Kovalevskaya also became a champion for women’s education. One of her earliest published articles was “Theorie der partiellen Differentialgleichungen” (“On Partial Differential Equations”), Journal für die reine und angewande Mathematik 80 (1875): 1–32.

                                   First page of Kovalevskaya's 1875 article on partial differential equations.

Second page of Kovalevskaya's 1875 article on partial differential equations.

Third page of Kovalevskaya's 1875 article on partial differential equations.

The images above were obtained from the Internet Archive’s digitization of the copy owned by the Stanford University Library.

Index to Mathematical Treasures

Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University), "Mathematical Treasure: Sofia Kovalevskaya’s Article on Partial Differential Equations," Convergence (April 2021)