At the University of Kazan, I studied mathematics under J.M.C. Bartels, friend and teacher of Carl Gauss.

I was an Assistant Professor (1814), Extraordinary Professor (1816), and Ordinary Professor (1823)...then fell into disfavor and lost my academic position in 1846.

As early as 1815, I tried to prove Euclid's parallel postulate, but the futility of the efforts led to my creation of hyperbolic non-Euclidean geometry.

In 1855, I became blind and finally got around to dictating versions (in French and Russian) of my new geometry, that were published.

According to Tom Lehrer who wrote a song about me, when people hear my name they are suppose to think of the word "plagerize"!