Student Life

A short time after he had become a university student, in the fall of 1859, Sophus Lie enrolled at the Royal Fredrik’s University of Christiania. We know little about his reflections concerning the choice of studies, except that according to comments by his best friend Ernst Motzfeldt, Lie might well have been thinking of studying philology. The two friends and neophyte university students, Ernst and Sophus, had mounted a little hiking tour after the examen artium and before the start of lectures at the University. They headed west from Christiania, through Asker to Drammen, on to Kongsberg, and returned across Ringerike, north of the capital.