Nikolai Lobachevsky

Nikolai Lobachevsky
Portrait by Lev Kryukov (c. 1843)
Born	December 1, 1792 Makaryev, Makaryevsky uezd, Nizhny Novgorod Governorate,Russian Empire (now Makaryevo, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia)
Died	February 24, 1856 (aged 63) Kazan, Kazan Governorate, Russian Empire (now Tatarstan, Russia)
Nationality	Russian
Fields	Geometry
Alma mater	Kazan University
Academic advisors	J. C. M. Bartels
Notable students	Nikolai Brashman
Known for	Lobachevskian geometry
Signature

Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky (Russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Лобаче́вский; IPA: [nʲikɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ləbɐˈtɕɛfskʲɪj]; 1 December [O.S. 20 November] 1792 – 24 February [O.S. 12 February] 1856) was a Russian mathematician and geometer, known primarily for his work on hyperbolic geometry, otherwise known as Lobachevskian geometry.

William Kingdon Clifford called Lobachevsky the "Copernicus of Geometry" due to the revolutionary character of his work.

Nikolai Lobachevsky was born either in or near the city of Nizhny Novgorod in the Russian Empire (now in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia) in 1792 to parents of Polish origin – Ivan Maksimovich Lobachevsky and Praskovia Alexandrovna Lobachevskaya. He was one of three children. His father, a clerk in a land surveying office, died when he was seven, and his mother moved to Kazan. Lobachevsky attended Kazan Gymnasium from 1802, graduating in 1807 and then received a scholarship to Kazan University, which was founded just three years earlier in 1804.

At Kazan University, Lobachevsky was influenced by professor Johann Christian Martin Bartels, a former teacher and friend of German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. Lobachevsky received a master's degree in physics and mathematics in 1811. In 1814, he became a lecturer at Kazan University, in 1816 he was promoted to associate professor, and in 1822, at the age of 30, he became a full professor, teaching mathematics, physics, and astronomy. He served in many administrative positions and became the rector of Kazan University in 1827. In 1832, he married Varvara Alexeyevna Moiseyeva. They had a large number of children (eighteen according to his son's memoirs, while only seven apparently survived into adulthood). He was dismissed from the university in 1846, ostensibly due to his deteriorating health: by the early 1850s, he was nearly blind and unable to walk. He died in poverty in 1856.