the domain of mathematics was supplemented by another, produced by the genius of Lobachevsky (1826): his "pan-geometry," which revealed an entirely new and comprehensive conception of space, eventually found some partisans among Russian mathematicians, for instance, Vashchenko, and Zacharchenko[1].
During the same period the evolution of independent Russian thought concerning the real world in its natural and historical aspect can also be exemplified. Such a knowledge supposes a theoretical conception of Reality as an object of experience, and experience, from an epistemological and even practical point of view, becomes a problem in itself.
The most scientific mathematical treatment of natural phenomena could, however, be applied only to some of them: it turned out to be particularly successful in mechanics. Following Bernoulli and Euler, some Russian scholars contributed to this subject: thus Ostrogradsky wrote papers on the propagation of undulatory motion in a cylinder and on the motion of an elastic body; and more recently Lyapunov solved the problem of the figures of equilibrium not very different from ellipsoids exhibited by a homogeneous and liquid mass with a rotatory movement.
Mathematics and mechanics were applied also to astronomical investigations: one of the colleagues of Bernoulli—the Frenchman Delisle—and Rumovsky a Russian pupil of Euler, began this work; but it was organized somewhat later, after the foundation of the
- ↑ Cf. p. 174, note 2. В. Каганъ, Математика, in "Исторія Россіи въ XIX вҍкҍ," изд А. и И. Гранатъ, М., vol. VI, pp. 308–327.
