Nikolai Lobachevsky Research Paper

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Nikolai Lobachevsky was born on December 1, 1792 near Nizhny Novgorod in Russia. He was born to Polish parents named Ivan Maksimovich Lobachevsky and Praskovia Alexandrovna Lobachevskaya. He was one of three sons and his family was very poor. When Lobachevsky was only seven years of age, his father, a land surveyor, died. Soon after that his family uprooted and moved to Kazan, Russia, located somewhere near Siberia to try and start a new life and escape poverty. This is where Lobachevsky would spend the rest of his days.
When he was ten and his family moved to Kazan, he and his brothers started school at Kazan Gymnasium in 1802. Lobachevsky soon learned that he obtained a gift for mathematics. His main teacher noticed this gift and paid extra attention to him. Then in 1807 he graduated from the same school and earned a scholarship for Kazan University; a university that was only two years old at the time, needing more students for it to thrive. Lobachevsky was only fifteen at the time and he was thrilled to be able to have this opportunity. He planned to enroll in natural sciences so he could study medicine, but during his time at the university he was strongly influenced by Johann Christian Martin Bartels, a former professor. Professor Bartels had once tutored Carl Friedrich Gauss, one of history’s well known mathematicians. In 1811 Lobachevsky received a Master’s degree in physics and mathematics and just three short years later he became a lecturer at Kazan University. In 1816 he advanced to associate professor and around the same time Professor Bartels and many other professors began to retire and leave Russia, leaving young Lobachevsky in charge of all physics and mathematics departments in the university. In 1...

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...6 Lobachevsky’s health began to diminish. His health got so poor that the university had to dismiss him. By the 1850’s he was virtually blind and almost immobile. He died blind and poor on February 24, 1956.
Lobachevsky never got to see his work really take flight. He died thinking it was misunderstand and consigned to oblivion by his peers. It’s too bad that he did not get to see the impact that his ideas and theories really made. Today’s mathematical system probably would not be the same without his work. It served as the fundamentals of mathematical thinking for succeeding generations. William Clifford compared Lobachevsky to Copernicus in possibly the best way when he stated this:
.” He showed people how math can relate to real world problems of every kind. He helped shape the mathematical system we have today and he should be recognized for doing so.

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