Sonya Vasilievna Kovalevskaya has been applauded by some as the most astounding mathematical genius to surface among women in the last two centuries, and one of the first women to make contributions of high quality to the field.

The middle of three children, Kovalevskaya was born on January 15, 1850, in Moscow. Her father, Vasilli Korvin-Krukovski, was an Artillery General in the Russian army. He was a educated and disciplined man who was fluent in English and French, and was a stern but benevolent parent. Her mother, Elizaveta Fyodorovna Schubert, came from a family of German scholars who had emigrated to Russia in the mid-1700s. Kovalevskaya's grandfather, Fyodor Fyodorovich Schubert, and great-grandfather, Fyodor Ivanovich Schubert, were noted mathematicians.

A singular incident in Kovalevskaya's childhood seems to have been a portent of her devotion to the study of mathematics. While living at the family estate, she came upon a room...