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.
His pursuit of knowledge became even more important when he entered the university of Ingolstadt. He "read with ardour" (35) and soon become "so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the light of the morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory" (35). He was a proud product of the Enlightenment...
Chekhov was born in Taganrog, Russia in 1860 to a woman named Yevgeniya and a man named Pavel. His father, who shares the name of the bishop, is described as being “severe” and sometimes went as far as to chastise Chekhov and his siblings (Letters
In 1919, at the age of thirteen, he was allowed to enter the Petrograd Conservatory in Saint Petersburg and studied piano with Leonid Nikolayev. Because the conservatory was poorly funded, it did not have heat; the students had to wear coats, hats and gloves constantly only taking off their gloves when composing. Because of these poor living conditions Dmitri developed tuberculosis of the lymph glands in spring 1923 and had to have an operation. Nevertheless, he completed his final piano examinations at the conservatory in June with his neck still bandaged. Shostakovich, though very intelligent and talented, was seen as immature in his fin...
...Russian society and social norms. The greatest reminder of this is found in the fact that Lopahkin, the man who Ranevsky once spoke to condescendingly, is now the family’s last hope for survival. Ironically enough, Lopahkin is often glancing at his watch, a reminder that time is changing, and a message that he, himself, is a testament to.
He would continue his work as a teacher from 1917-1924, when he resigned to accept a job at the local teacher’s college. There, one of Vygotsky’s responsibilities was to teach courses in psychology, which is what sparked his interest in psychology, specifically cognitive development in children. In 1924, Vygotsky met a man by the name of Alexander Luria who worked at Moscow’s Institute of Psychology (MIP). Impressed by Vygotsky’s work, Luria offered him a job working at MIP, which allowed him the opportunity to work and study the cognitive development of children and adults suffering from numerous kinds of neurological disorders.... ...
It is interesting that despite the fame he achieved because of his mechanical inventions, he believed that pure mathematics was the more worthwhile pursuit. Plutarch describes his attitude:
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was born in Tobolsk, Siberia, on February 7, 1834. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy was the son of Maria Dmitrievna Korniliev and Ivan Pavlovitch Mendeleev and the youngest of 14 children. Dmitri’s father, Ivan died when Dmitri was still very young and Dmitri’s mother, Maria was left to support her large family. Maria needed money to support all her children, so she took over managing her family’s glass factory in Aremziansk. The family had to pack up and move there.
...st important scientists in history. It is said that they both shaped the sciences and mathematics that we use and study today. Euclid’s postulates and Archimedes’ calculus are both important fundamentals and tools in mathematics, while discoveries, such Archimedes’ method of using water to measure the volume of an irregularly shaped object, helped shaped all of today’s physics and scientific principles. It is for these reasons that they are remembered for their contributions to the world of mathematics and sciences today, and will continue to be remembered for years to come.
He is well known for creating the theme of logic. Logic at first was one major contribution of his in Philosophy. This man had theories and thoughts that changed the world of Philosophy till this day. Along with his creation of logic, he created Metaphysics.
However, his greatest contribution to mathematics is considered to be logic, for without logic there would be no reasoning and therefore no true valid rules to the science of mathematics.
No other scholar has affected more fields of learning than Blaise Pascal. Born in 1623 in Clermont, France, he was born into a family of respected mathematicians. Being the childhood prodigy that he was, he came up with a theory at the age of three that was Euclid’s book on the sum of the interior of triangles. At the age of sixteen, he was brought by his father Etienne to discuss about math with the greatest minds at the time. He spent his life working with math but also came up with a plethora of new discoveries in the physical sciences, religion, computers, and in math. He died at the ripe age of thirty nine in 1662(). Blaise Pascal has contributed to the fields of mathematics, physical science and computers in countless ways.
Tolstoy's eventful life impacted his works. Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born into a family of aristocratic landowners in 1828 at the family estate at Yasnaya Polyana, a place south of Moscow. His parents died in the 1930s when he was very young so his aunts raised him with an upper middle class lifestyle. His aunts were very important to him and when they died, he made them live on forever as characters in his stories (Alexander 16). While his aunts were still alive, they hired tutors to teach him out of Tolstoy's home (Tolstoi). After a few years of wandering about Russia, he recommenced his studies at sixteen years old at Kazan' University to study law and oriental language but preferred to educate himself independently and in 1847, he gave up his studies without finishing his degree (Troyat 28).
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, born in 1821, would become one of the greatest writers in Russian literature. Fyodor received an education in engineering in St. Petersburg, but decided to follow a literary career. He was a person who wrote how they felt about certain topics, and felt that everyone should know about the government. Dostoyevsky joined the underground group, the Petrashevsky circle, the to bring out the truth in these books, which were forbidden in the public. Through these themes, Dostoyevsky wrote about many topics.
Born in the Netherlands, Daniel Bernoulli was one of the most well-known Bernoulli mathematicians. He contributed plenty to mathematics and advanced it, ahead of its time. His father, Johann, made him study medicine at first, as there was little money in mathematics, but eventually, Johann gave in and tutored Daniel in mathematics. Johann treated his son’s desire to lea...
Carl Friedrich Gauss was born April 30, 1777 in Brunswick, Germany to a stern father and a loving mother. At a young age, his mother sensed how intelligent her son was and insisted on sending him to school to develop even though his dad displayed much resistance to the idea. The first test of Gauss’ brilliance was at age ten in his arithmetic class when the teacher asked the students to find the sum of all whole numbers 1 to 100. In his mind, Gauss was able to connect that 1+100=101, 2+99=101, and so on, deducing that all 50 pairs of numbers would equal 101. By this logic all Gauss had to do was multiply 50 by 101 and get his answer of 5,050. Gauss was bound to the mathematics field when at the age of 14, Gauss met the Duke of Brunswick. The duke was so astounded by Gauss’ photographic memory that he financially supported him through his studies at Caroline College and other universities afterwards. A major feat that Gauss had while he was enrolled college helped him decide that he wanted to focus on studying mathematics as opposed to languages. Besides his life of math, Gauss also had six children, three with Johanna Osthoff and three with his first deceased wife’s best fri...