32 Facts About Mikhail Lomonosov

The founder of modern geology, Lomonosov was a poet and influenced the formation of the modern Russian literary language.

Mikhail Lomonosov was born in the village of Mishaninskaya in Archangelgorod Governorate, on an island not far from Kholmogory, in the far north of Russia.

Mikhail Lomonosov's father, Vasily Dorofeyevich Lomonosov, was a prosperous peasant fisherman turned ship owner, who amassed a small fortune transporting goods from Arkhangelsk to Pustozyorsk, Solovki, Kola, and Lapland.

Mikhail Lomonosov's mother was Vasily's first wife, a deacon's daughter, Elena Ivanovna Sivkova.

Mikhail Lomonosov remained at Denisovka until he was ten, when his father decided that he was old enough to participate in his business ventures, and Lomonosov began accompanying Vasily on trading missions.

Mikhail Lomonosov had been taught to read as a boy by his neighbor Ivan Shubny, and he spent every spare moment with his books.

When he was fourteen, Mikhail Lomonosov was given copies of Meletius Smotrytsky's Modern Church Slavonic and Leonty Magnitsky's Arithmetic.

Mikhail Lomonosov was a Russian orthodox all his life, but had close encounters with Old Believers schism in early youth and later in life he became a deist.

In 1730, determined to "study sciences," the 19-year-old Mikhail Lomonosov walked all the way to Moscow.

Mikhail Lomonosov lived on three kopecks a day, eating only black bread and kvass, but he made rapid progress scholastically.

Mikhail Lomonosov quickly became dissatisfied with the education he was receiving there, and returned to Moscow.

In five years Mikhail Lomonosov completed a twelve-year study course and in 1736, among 12 best graduates, was awarded a scholarship at the St Petersburg Academy.

Mikhail Lomonosov plunged into his studies and was rewarded with a four-year grant to study abroad, in Germany, first at the University of Marburg and then in Freiberg.

Mikhail Lomonosov quickly mastered the German language, and in addition to philosophy, seriously studied chemistry, discovered the works of 17th century Irish theologian and natural philosopher Robert Boyle, and even began writing poetry.

Contrary to his adoration for Wolff, Mikhail Lomonosov had fierce disputes with Henckel over the training and education courses he and his two compatriot students were getting in Freiberg, as well as over very limited financial support which Henckel was instructed to provide to the Russians after numerous debts they had accumulated in Marburg.

Mikhail Lomonosov fell in love with Catharina's daughter Elizabeth Christine Zilch.

Mikhail Lomonosov found it extremely difficult to maintain his growing family on the scanty and irregular allowance granted him by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Mikhail Lomonosov was made a full member of the academy and named professor of chemistry in 1745.

Eager to improve Russia's educational system, in 1755, Mikhail Lomonosov joined his patron Count Ivan Shuvalov in founding Moscow University.

In 1764, Mikhail Lomonosov was appointed to the position of the State Councillor which was of Rank V in the Russian Empire's Table of Ranks.

Mikhail Lomonosov is widely and deservingly regarded as the "Father of Russian Science," though many of his scientific accomplishments were relatively unknown outside Russia until long after his death and gained proper appreciation only in late 19th and, especially, 20th centuries.

In 1756, Mikhail Lomonosov tried to replicate Robert Boyle's experiment of 1673.

Mikhail Lomonosov concluded that the commonly accepted phlogiston theory was false.

Mikhail Lomonosov was the first to discover and appreciate the atmosphere of Venus during his observation of the transit of Venus of 1761 in a small observatory near his house in St Petersburg.

In 1762, Mikhail Lomonosov presented an improved design of a reflecting telescope to the Russian Academy of Sciences forum.

Mikhail Lomonosov's telescope had its primary mirror adjusted at an angle of four degrees to the telescope's axis.

In 1759, with his collaborator, academician Joseph Adam Braun, Mikhail Lomonosov was the first person to record the freezing of mercury and to carry out initial experiments with it.

Mikhail Lomonosov based his conceptions on the unity of the Earth's processes in time, and necessity to explain the planet's past from present.

Mikhail Lomonosov got close to the theory of continental drift, theoretically predicted the existence of Antarctica, and invented sea tools which made writing and calculating directions and distances easier.

Mikhail Lomonosov was proud to restore the ancient art of mosaics.

Mikhail Lomonosov's great-granddaughter was Princess Maria Volkonskaya, the wife of the Decembrist Prince Sergei Volkonsky.

In Dnipro, Ukraine, a statue of Mikhail Lomonosov replaced a statue of Catherine the Great in 1919.