Mikhail Lomonosov

Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov was a Russian polymath, scientist, and writer whose contributions spanned literature, education, and multiple scientific fields. His discoveries included the atmosphere of Venus, the law of conservation of mass in chemical reactions, the theoretical prediction of Antarctica, and the concept of coaxial rotors. His scientific work encompassed natural science, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, history, art, philology, and optical devices. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern geology and also influenced the formation of the modern Russian literary language as a poet.

Born in the village of Mishaninskaya (later renamed Lomonosovo) in the far north of Russia, Lomonosov was the son of Vasily Dorofeyevich Lomonosov, a prosperous peasant fisherman and ship owner, and his first wife, Elena Ivanovna Sivkova, a deacon’s daughter. He learned to read from a neighbor, Ivan Shubny, and later studied with the village deacon, S.N. Sabelnikov, though for years his only books were religious texts. At fourteen, he obtained copies of Meletius Smotrytsky’s grammar and Leonty Magnitsky’s Arithmetic. Unhappy with his stepmother after his father’s third marriage, he left home at nineteen, walking to Moscow in 1730. He gained admission to the Slavic Greek Latin Academy by falsely claiming noble birth, nearly being expelled in 1734 for this and a later lie that he was a priest’s son. Living on three kopecks a day, he completed a twelve-year course in five years. In 1736, he was among twelve top graduates awarded a scholarship to the St. Petersburg Academy, then sent abroad to study at the University of Marburg and in Freiberg, Germany. At Marburg, he studied under the philosopher Christian Wolff, mastering German, studying chemistry, and writing poetry. He later studied mineralogy and mining in Freiberg but left after disputes with his instructor. He married Elisabeth Christine Zilch in 1740 and returned to Russia in 1741. He became an Adjunct of the Russian Academy of Science in physics in 1742, but was arrested and held under house arrest for eight months in 1743 after insulting academy associates, being released in 1744.