Mathematics faculty
The faculty of mathematics is one of the oldest at the University. Its staff totals above 80 lecturers. The faculty includes the following eight departments: higher mathematics, mathematical analysis, technological cybernetics, mathematical cybernetics, differential equations, algebra and geometry, computational mathematics, new information technologies. Each department is staffed by highly qualified lecturers. The majority of them has scientific degrees.
The curriculum includes social sciences, educational sciences and special ones. Students are trained to become teachers of mathematics and computer sciences, system programmers or administrators of computer network. During the first two years students have lectures on calculus, algebra, geometry, topology and differential equations.
From the third year the students specialize in a particular field. They can choose any of the following branches: the theory of functions, differential equations, algebra and the theory of numbers, geometry and topology, computational mathematics and programming etc. Students receive a broad theoretical and practical training in mathematics. They make up programs and use them in their course and diploma papers.
The fifth year students run their qualification practice in computing centers, the departments of the faculty, research institutions and at secondary schools. They complete their studies by submitting a graduation paper to the State Examination Board. For this purpose they are attached to the respective chair where they do research under the direction of a supervisor in well-equipped laboratories.
Most of the teaching staff works at different problems of mechanics of reacting media. The faculty is famous for its wide range of research. The academic staff of the faculty regularly takes part in international congresses and also holds conferences on mathematics, computational mathematics, mechanics and new information technologies.
Graduates work as teachers of mathematics or computer sciences, programmers, administrators of computer network at schools, higher educational establishments, in computing centers and laboratories. The best students can take a postgraduate course at the University.
Sophia kovalevskaya
The outstanding Russian mathematician Sophia Kovalevskaya was born in Moscow on the 15th of February in 1850, in a family of an artillery general Korvin-Krukovsky. When she was only eight an experienced teacher taught her arithmetic, grammar, literature, geography and history. Though the girl liked literature, she showed an unusual gift in mathematics. At the age of twelve she puzzled her teacher by suggesting a new solution for the determination of the ratio of diameter of the circle to its circumference.
In 1867 Sophia Korvin-Krukovsky and her elder sister were taken to St. Petersburg. There the young lady was not allowed to go on with her studies at the university. The only way out for her was to go abroad. But in this case there was a condition that the woman should have been married. She married to Vladimir Kovalevsky and soon left for Vienna. There the Kovalevskys were given the permission to attend lectures on Physics at Vienna University, but this did not satisfy Sophia. She made up her mind to go to Heidelberg University as her attention was to take examinations for a Doctor’s degree in mathematics and mechanics.
In 1871 Kovalevsky went to Berlin where she read privately with professor Weierstrass and worked on the refraction of light in crystals. In 1874 the University of Göttingen granted her a degree of Doctor of philosophy because she wrote three dissertations one of which was on the theory of partial differential equations.
In 1883 Kovalevsky was given an opportunity to report on the results of her research at a session held in Odessa, but no post followed. When she was offered lectureship at Stockholm University she willingly accepted the offer.
In 1888 she achieved the highest prize offered by the Paris Academy for the theory of a movement of a solid body about an immovable point.
In 1889 she was awarded another prize by the Swedish Academy of science. Shortly after she was elected professor of mechanics of Stockholm University and held the post until her death.
When she became a world-famous scientist and had won recognition even in her own country by election to membership of the St. Petersburg Academy of science.