Kovalevsky's life stands out as an example of the triumph of will and determination over nearly insurmountable obstacles. She was brought into the world with every opportunity for success, opportunities of which she took advantage. Kovalevsky was born Sofya Korvina Krukovskaya and raised on the estate of a wealthy and learned family of Russian aristocrats. Her exposure to the world of higher mathematics occurred early in life on the family estate, where one room was papered with the pages of a text on differential calculus.

Kovalevsky's education continued in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the family's social circle included the great novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881). Her teachers at the Naval Academy in St. Petersburg recognized her great talent but did not encourage a serious commitment to mathematical work, for nineteenth-century Russian society frowned upon the idea of women entering higher education. Yet this obstacle did not deter Kovalevsky. In...