Woman in Science / With an Introductory Chapter on Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind

by J. A. Zahm

She was born in Moscow in 1850, but although her career was brief it was one of meteoric splendor. At an early age she exhibited an unusual talent for mathematics and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Not being able to obtain in her own country the educational advantages she desired, she resolved at the age of eighteen to go to Germany with a view of pursuing her studies there under more favorable auspices.

She first matriculated in the University of Heidelberg, where she spent two years in studying mathematics under the most eminent professors of that famous old institution. Thence she went to Berlin. She could not enter the University there, as its doors were closed to female students; but she was fortunate enough to prevail on the illustrious Professor Weierstrass, regarded by many as the father of mathematical analysis, to give her private lessons. He soon discovered to his astonishment that this child-woman had "the gift of intuitive genius to a degree he had seldom found among even his older and more developed students." Under this eminent mathematician Sónya spent about three years, at the end of which period she was able to present to the University of Göttingen three theses which she had written under the direction of her professor. The merit of her work and the testimonials which she was able to present from Weierstrass, Kirchhoff and others were of such supreme excellence that she was exempted from an oral examination and was enabled, by a very special privilege, to receive her doctorate without appearing in person.

Not long after receiving her doctor's degree—one of the first to be granted to a woman by a German university—she was offered the chair of higher mathematics in the University of Stockholm. She was the first woman in Europe, outside of Italy, to be thus honored. But her appointment had to be made in the face of great opposition. No other university, it was urged by the conservatives, had yet offered a professor's chair to a woman. Strindberg, one of the leaders of modern Swedish literature, wrote an article in which he proved, "as decidedly as that two and two make four, what a monstrosity is a woman who is a professor of mathematics, and how unnecessary, injurious and out of place she is."[130]

The fame that came to Sónya through her achievements in the German and Swedish universities was immensely enhanced when, on Christmas eve, 1888, "at a solemn session of the French Academy of Sciences, she received in person the Prix Bordin—the greatest scientific honor which any woman had ever gained; one of the greatest honors, indeed, to which any one can aspire."

She became at once the heroine of the hour and was thenceforth "a European celebrity with a place in history." She was fêted by men of science whithersoever she went and hailed by the women of the world as the glory of her sex and as the most brilliant type of intellectual womanhood.

Mme. Kovalévsky's printed mathematical works embrace only a few memoirs including those which she presented for her doctorate and for the Prix Bordin. But brief as they are, all of these memoirs are regarded by mathematicians as being of special value. This is particularly true of the memoirs, which secured for her the Prix Bordin; for it contains the solution of a problem that long had baffled the genius of the greatest mathematicians.

The prize had been opened to the competition of the mathematicians of the world, and the astonishment of the committee of the French Academy was beyond expression when it was found that the successful contestant was a woman.[131]

Everyone admired her varied and profound knowledge, but, above all, her amazing powers of analysis. A German mathematician, Kronecker, did not hesitate to declare that "the history of mathematics will speak of her as one of the rarest investigators."[132]

Shortly before her premature death, she had planned a great work on mathematics. All who are interested in the intellectual capacities and achievements of woman must regret that she was unable to complete what would undoubtedly have been the noblest monument of woman's scientific genius. She was then in the prime of life and perfectly equipped for the work she had in mind. Considering the extraordinary receptive and productive power of this richly dowered woman, there can be little doubt, had she lived a few years longer, that she would have produced a work that would have caused her to be ranked among the greatest mathematicians of the nineteenth century.