Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891), Mathematician We start in 19th century Russia, with a woman who wasn’t supposed to exist, at least not in mathematics. Sofia Kovalevskaya grew up in a Russia where universities were closed to women entirely. Her solution was characteristically audacious: she arranged a marriage of convenience to obtain a passport, moved to Germany, and proceeded to become the
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS Game theory is everywhere, from the moves you make in chess to the way countries negotiate treaties, from the strategies in our favorite video game to the decisions we make every day. But how did this field come to be? Who were the brilliant minds behind it, and what mathematical breakthroughs made it possible? Welcome to Math! Science!
It’s Flashcards Friday! at Math! Science! History! and today we’re traveling back to the eighth century to explore the life of a man who helped rescue learning from the brink of oblivion, Alcuin of York. Alcuin isn’t exactly a household name. But if you’ve ever benefitted from the structure of a classroom, marveled at a manuscript, or even just read a