Saint Petersburg State University
A public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, founded in 1724. It is one of the country’s oldest institutions of higher education.
Peter the Great: Tsar of Russia from 1682 to 1725 who expanded the state and founded Saint Petersburg. He established the Academy of Sciences whose academic gymnasium and university became the university’s institutional origins.
Leonhard Euler: An eighteenth-century mathematician whose work shaped analysis, number theory, mechanics, and graph theory. He worked at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences and helped establish its mathematical prestige.
Faculty (division): An academic division within a university that groups related departments and programs. The university organizes much of its teaching and research through faculties and institutes.
University admissions: The process by which applicants are selected for entry to a university or its programs. Admissions determine entry to the university’s undergraduate and graduate programs.
Periodic table: A tabular arrangement of chemical elements ordered by atomic number and recurring chemical properties. Mendeleev developed his influential arrangement of the elements while teaching at the university.
Russian Academy of Sciences: Russia’s national academy of sciences, founded in Saint Petersburg in 1724. The university grew from the academic institutions attached to this academy.
Mikhail Lomonosov: An eighteenth-century Russian polymath who contributed to chemistry, physics, poetry, and education. His scientific and educational work is closely tied to the university’s early institutional history.
University: An institution that provides advanced education and conducts research across academic disciplines. Saint Petersburg State University is a large public example of this institutional form.
Graduate education: Advanced study and training undertaken after completion of an undergraduate degree. The university trains researchers and specialists through postgraduate programs.
Poincaré conjecture: A theorem stating that every simply connected, closed three-dimensional manifold is homeomorphic to a three-dimensional sphere. Perelman, a university alumnus, proved this conjecture in the early twenty-first century.