Sofya Kovalevskaya: a mathematician and a person (Q2759272)

A noted mathematician reflects on the life and work of his Russian compatriot Sofya Kovalevskaya (1850-1891) who worked on related fields. The author is generally sympathetic to her results of which he stresses the methodological, conceptual importance in spite of certain logical lacunae. Visibly absent in the article, which seems to be based on a talk, is reference to previous historical work on Kovalevskaya's mathematics, especially \textit{R. L. Cooke}'s book of 1984, ``The Mathematics of Sofya Kovalevskaya'' (New York, Springer) (see Zbl 0558.01029). General historical and psychological remarks tend to be unreliable (for example the connection of Felix Klein's student years to World War I, p. 1178), the translation has some slips too (p. 1180 ``early'' instead of ``earlier'').