Nikolai Lobachevsky
1 December 1792 – 24 February 1856
Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky (1792-1856) was a Russian mathematician known as one of the founders of non-Euclidean geometry, sometimes called the 'Copernicus of geometry'. He spent nearly his entire career at Kazan University, where he served as rector for almost two decades while developing hyperbolic geometry independently of Janos Bolyai.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Nikolai Lobachevsky.
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- Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) Overlapped 64 years →
- Samuel Morse (1791–1872) Overlapped 64 years →
- Charles Babbage (1791–1871) Overlapped 64 years →
- Michael Faraday (1791–1867) Overlapped 64 years →
Life events
Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky was born into a poor family of a clerk in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgFollowing the death of his father, his mother moved the family to Kazan, where he attended the gymnasium on a scholarship.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgLobachevsky entered the newly founded Kazan University, where he studied mathematics and physics under professors including Martin Bartels.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe became a full professor at Kazan University, teaching mathematics, physics, and astronomy.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgLobachevsky delivered a lecture to the Kazan University physics and mathematics department outlining a geometry in which Euclid's parallel postulate does not hold.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgLobachevsky was appointed rector of Kazan University, a post he held for nineteen years, during which he greatly improved the university.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHis first published account of hyperbolic geometry appeared in the Kazan Messenger, marking the first published work on non-Euclidean geometry.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgLobachevsky married Varvara Alexeyevna Moiseyeva, with whom he had a large family.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBlind and in failing health, Lobachevsky dictated his last summary of his geometric system, 'Pangeometry'.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgLobachevsky died in Kazan in poverty, his geometric work still largely unrecognized during his lifetime.
Source: en.wikipedia.org