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Beyond the Limit: The Dream of Sofya Kovalevskaya
Beyond the Limit , a novel researched for more than ten years by mathematician and educator Joan Spicci, is the true story of Sofya Kovalevskaya's remarkable personal journey, from the constricted life of a teenage girl in St. Petersburg to the triumph of becoming the first woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics and join the ranks of Europe's great mathematicians of the nineteenth century.
For more than one hundred years, Kovalevskaya's struggle has inspired women of all nations to fight for educational opportunities equal to those available to men. But while she is known for the science and mathematics Opportunity Days sponsored in her name at major universities, the full drama and power of her life has never been told as it now unfolds in this thoroughly researched novel.
Based on Kovalevskaya's own writings, and many other primary sources, the story of her life plays out against a panorama of the turbulent, intellectually challenging 1860s and 1870s, as it follows a brilliant, complex woman on a quest that seems almost impossible to imagine, more than a century later. Friends with some of the intellectual giants of her time, ranging from Dostoevsky to Darwin, she was the equal of them all, as chronicled in this extraordinary work.
In the Russia of the 1860s, young women did as their fathers bid them, and after marriage was arranged, they did what their husbands told them to do. But Sofya Krukovskaya was different. Born to a family in which science and mathematics were already part of its heritage, Sofya takes every opportunity to learn more about mathematics in tutoring sessions. But her tutors know that if she is to realize her potential, she must study at a university. In order to do that, she lies to her family and makes a marriage of convenience with archaeologist Vladimir Kovalevsky, enabling her and her sister Anya to leave Russia and seek education at a German university.
However, leaving Russia is only the first hurdle she must vault to pursue her dream of becoming Europe's first woman mathematician. When she applies for admission, she is refused by stubbornly prejudiced university officials, forcing her to study covertly with the great mathematician Karl Weierstrass, under whose guidance she is at last able to gain her doctorate.
Very close to her sister Anya, a talented writer whose revolutionary fervor takes her to the powder keg of the Paris Commune of 1871, more than once Sofya has to forsake her own goals to save Anya from ruin, and even death.
Married in name only for many years, Sofya and Vladimir have a complex, volatile relationship. Loving each other, they're forced by the needs of their careers to withstand long separations and other trials. Across Europe, through tragedy and finally triumph, their story is richly told against the backdrop of history.
Mathematician and educator Joan Spicci's compelling narrative accurately documents Sofya's educational and professional struggle, in Beyond the Limit.
This fascinating, intimate portrait of Sofya Kovalevskaya's life confronts issues of women's rights and feminism that continue to face women who pursue careers in the sciences in the twenty-first century.
For more than one hundred years, Kovalevskaya's struggle has inspired women of all nations to fight for educational opportunities equal to those available to men. But while she is known for the science and mathematics Opportunity Days sponsored in her name at major universities, the full drama and power of her life has never been told as it now unfolds in this thoroughly researched novel.
Based on Kovalevskaya's own writings, and many other primary sources, the story of her life plays out against a panorama of the turbulent, intellectually challenging 1860s and 1870s, as it follows a brilliant, complex woman on a quest that seems almost impossible to imagine, more than a century later. Friends with some of the intellectual giants of her time, ranging from Dostoevsky to Darwin, she was the equal of them all, as chronicled in this extraordinary work.
In the Russia of the 1860s, young women did as their fathers bid them, and after marriage was arranged, they did what their husbands told them to do. But Sofya Krukovskaya was different. Born to a family in which science and mathematics were already part of its heritage, Sofya takes every opportunity to learn more about mathematics in tutoring sessions. But her tutors know that if she is to realize her potential, she must study at a university. In order to do that, she lies to her family and makes a marriage of convenience with archaeologist Vladimir Kovalevsky, enabling her and her sister Anya to leave Russia and seek education at a German university.
However, leaving Russia is only the first hurdle she must vault to pursue her dream of becoming Europe's first woman mathematician. When she applies for admission, she is refused by stubbornly prejudiced university officials, forcing her to study covertly with the great mathematician Karl Weierstrass, under whose guidance she is at last able to gain her doctorate.
Very close to her sister Anya, a talented writer whose revolutionary fervor takes her to the powder keg of the Paris Commune of 1871, more than once Sofya has to forsake her own goals to save Anya from ruin, and even death.
Married in name only for many years, Sofya and Vladimir have a complex, volatile relationship. Loving each other, they're forced by the needs of their careers to withstand long separations and other trials. Across Europe, through tragedy and finally triumph, their story is richly told against the backdrop of history.
Mathematician and educator Joan Spicci's compelling narrative accurately documents Sofya's educational and professional struggle, in Beyond the Limit.
This fascinating, intimate portrait of Sofya Kovalevskaya's life confronts issues of women's rights and feminism that continue to face women who pursue careers in the sciences in the twenty-first century.
- GenresNonfictionMathematics
496 pages, Hardcover
First published August 24, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 12, 2024
A fascinating story, but not particularly well told. It's tough to get a doctorate, even tougher in mathematics, tougher yet for a woman in the nineteenth century who must engage in a sham marriage to even get to a country where she might study mathematics, when no woman anywhere has gotten into graduate school much less gotten the credentials Sofya craves. Spicci has picked the most fraught time period of Sofya's life to depict, which keeps the reader turning pages. But she lapses into startling sentence fragments which stop the flow of her story, and she fails to tell us why a new mother has severe back pain, or whether the professor ever produces the interesting doctoral-worthy problem he first comes up with, or whether Sofya takes up that challenge. That's why three stars rather than five, but I still recommend this book about a brave woman who refuses to relinquish her dream.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 3, 2017
Wonderfully written
I really loved this book. It was filled with so much history but written in a way to make compelling reading. Sure wish there was a sequel. Would love to know how they all made out in Russia.
I really loved this book. It was filled with so much history but written in a way to make compelling reading. Sure wish there was a sequel. Would love to know how they all made out in Russia.
January 16, 2023
Well written biographical novel. Captures the mid nineteenth century European mindset and the desire of highly intelligent women to be given opportunity in the math and sciences.
January 8, 2010
Brilliantly researched and written book about Europe's first female professor - Sophia Kovalevskaya (1850-1891). The author is a mathematician herself who was able to access Kovalevskaya's writings, which was a definite plus. Spicci capably described Sonya's difficult upbringing in Imperial St. Petersburg and the restrictions faced by women wanting to attend University in that era. Forced to travel abroad to pursue her intellectual quest, Kovalevskaya was the first woman to receive a Doctorate (in Germany). Interweaved with Sophia's story is that of her sister who immersed herself in the underground politics of the Paris Commune and the complex relationship she had with her husband (who later committed suicide). Kovalevskaya suffered many personal tragedies and it was only after her very premature death, did Russia fully acknowledge her academic achievements. It was Stockholm University, which first offered her a professorial chair, but her heart always remained in Russia. Sophia's unfailing determination clearly emerges throughout this supurb book and without doubt offers inspiration to women today to pusue their academic goals. Her mathematical formulae are still discussed in classes today.
January 13, 2011
I enjoyed the biography very much. Sofya was a young woman that wanted to continue to study mathematics at a time when it was unheard of and not allowed for young women to obtain higher education. Born into minor aristocracy, clearly brilliant and determined, friends with people like Dostoevky and Darwin, close to her sister, a writer that was involved with political radicals for the time and initially a marriage agreed upon specifically so that she could travel abroad to study, Sonya lead a life worth reading about.
June 26, 2008
Fatima for ages I was trying to remember the name, I love you. I think I need brain surgery for this shitty memory problem I have these days. I enjoy books that are relatively close to Russian dated history.Obviously I found this to be a pretty superb account.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews