- Person
- Emmy Noether
- Lived
- 1882–1935
- Field
- Mathematics
- From
- German
The story
Emmy Noether was born in Erlangen, Bavaria, on 23 March 1882, the eldest of four children of the mathematician Max Noether and Ida Amalia Kaufmann, both from Jewish merchant families. Her father was a professor at the University of Erlangen. As a girl she attended a municipal secondary school for girls, studying German, English, French and arithmetic, took piano lessons and loved to dance. In 1900 she passed the Bavarian examinations to teach English and French in girls' schools, earning the grade "very good".
She chose mathematics instead. It was an unconventional decision. Two years earlier the university's academic senate had declared that mixed-sex education would overthrow all academic order. From 1900 to 1902 Noether was one of just two women among 986 students and was allowed only to audit lectures, with the permission of each professor. She passed the university entrance examination in Nuremberg in July 1903 and spent the winter semester of 1903–04 auditing lectures at Göttingen by Hilbert, Klein, Minkowski and others.
When Bavarian universities finally allowed women to enrol fully, she matriculated at Erlangen in October 1904, now studying only mathematics. Under Paul Gordan she completed a doctorate in 1907, graduating summa cum laude with a thesis that listed more than 300 explicitly calculated invariants.
The usual next step, the habilitation that qualified a scholar to teach, was closed to women. So from 1908 to 1915 Noether worked at Erlangen's Mathematical Institute without pay, sometimes standing in for her father when he was too ill to lecture. She also advised two doctoral students, although both were officially supervised by her father. Her reputation grew: she joined the Circolo Matematico di Palermo in 1908 and the German Mathematical Society in 1909, and she was invited to lecture at the society's meetings in Salzburg in 1909 and Vienna in 1913. Gordan's successor Ernst Fischer introduced her to Hilbert's abstract methods, setting her on a new path.
In 1915 David Hilbert and Felix Klein invited her to Göttingen, where she would change both mathematics and physics. Her home town now honours her: MacTutor notes that a street in Erlangen bears her name and that the school she attended is now called the Emmy Noether School. Her persistence through years without pay or title helped open the way for women in mathematics.
Why it matters
Noether's persistence opened doors for women in mathematics and gave the world discoveries it would otherwise have lost.
About Emmy Noether
Erlangen-born mathematician who linked symmetry to conservation laws and reshaped abstract algebra, despite years of unpaid work as a woman and dismissal by the Nazis as a Jew.
More about Emmy Noether
- Emmy Noether's bound solved a problem in invariant theoryIn 1915 Emmy Noether solved the finite basis problem for finite groups, proving a degree limit now called Noether's bound. A last open case was settled only in 2000 and 2001.
- Emmy Noether helped classify division algebrasWith Richard Brauer and Helmut Hasse, Emmy Noether proved the Brauer–Hasse–Noether theorem, which allows all central division algebras over a number field to be classified.
- Emmy Noether helped create algebraic topologyAttending lectures by Pavel Alexandrov and Heinz Hopf in 1926–27, Emmy Noether suggested the idea of homology groups, helping turn combinatorial topology into algebraic topology.
- Emmy Noether's 1921 paper gave us Noetherian ringsIn her 1921 paper Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen, Emmy Noether turned the theory of ideals into a powerful general tool, and objects with her chain condition are still called Noetherian.
- Emmy Noether built a school of brilliant studentsEmmy Noether's Göttingen circle, the Noether boys, included doctoral students such as Grete Hermann, Ernst Witt, Max Deuring and Jacob Levitzki, who later taught in Jerusalem.
- Emmy Noether linked symmetry to the laws of conservationIn 1918 Emmy Noether proved that every continuous symmetry in physics comes with a conserved quantity, tying conservation of energy and momentum to symmetry.
- Emmy Noether unified group representation theoryEmmy Noether gave the first general representation theory of groups and algebras, combining scattered earlier results into a single theory of modules and ideals.
- Dismissed by the Nazis, Emmy Noether taught at homeAfter the Nazis barred her from teaching in 1933, Emmy Noether gathered students in her apartment to keep doing mathematics, unruffled even when one arrived in SA uniform.
Sources
- Emmy Noether Wikipedia
- Emmy Amalie Noether MacTutor History of Mathematics, University of St Andrews
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.