Portrait of the Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevski, 1793-1856. From 1827 Lobachevski developed the first non-Euclidean geometry to be published. It did not comply with Euclid's postulate that only one straight line can be drawn through a point in space parallel to a given straight line. Lobachevski's work was not widely accepted until Einstein's theory of relativity showed that the geometry of space-time is non-Euclidian. Euclidian geometry is now seen as a special case, adequate for all everyday purposes, within a more general system. Lobachevski did much for his university in Kazan, but he was dismissed in 1846 for obscure reasons.