N. LOBACHEVSKY AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE

In 1942 people in many countries marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky,1the great Russian scientist, founder of non-Euclidean geometry. This is a completely new science and although built on the old, classical geometry, the latter is no more than a cornerstone in its foundation. Lobachevsky’s ideas brought about a serious evolution in many aspects of geometry which prior to this seemed basically a science that had stopped completely in its ancient Hellenic forms. Before Lobachevsky the elements of geometry were regarded by many thinkers as some­ thing inherent, as something eternal or at any rate part of our consciousness and the only possible and necessa­ry forms of our thinking, that is as something indestruclible and unchangeable, as an eternal, God’s truth. Lo­bachevsky’s work destroyed this idealistic concept. His Ideas made ia deep imprint on all the elements and forms of mathematical construction; they came to be the guiding principles in all branches of exact knowledge— mechanics, physics and astronomy; they became very important, and in certain spheres the decisive element in philosophy. Clifford, a British mathematician, called Lobachevsky the Copernicus of geometry, comparing the great geometer with the founder of the modern heliocentric system of the Universe.
In the history of mathematics, in the history of knowl­edge and philosophy Lobachevsky, along with Archime­des, Galileo, Copernicus and Newton, will always rank among the founders of these sciences.A scientific biography of great Russian mathematician N. Lobachevsky.
Contains a list of his works and works on his life and work.