Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky

Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky (December 1, 1792 – February 24, 1856), called the “Copernicus of Geometry,” revolutionized the subject by helping to create a whole new branch, non-Euclidean geometry. His father died when Nikolai was seven and his mother moved her very poor family from Nizhny Novgorod to the city of Kazan at the edge of Siberia. Nikolai attended the Gymnasium, financed by a government scholarship, and in 1807 entered Kazan State University, which had been founded in 1804, as a result of reforms by Czar Alexander I. Lobachevsky originally intended to study medicine, but, influenced by distinguished professors whom the university had attracted from Germany, he took a broad scientific course involving mathematics and physics. In 1811 he received a Master’s degree in physics and mathematics. At the age of twenty-one, Lobachevsky became a member of the teaching staff.