Wonder Woman of the Week: Emmy Noether

I’m just going to say it, I hate math. I feel like math is simply a tool for solving issues in science and economics. To say you like math is to say you like nails. You don’t like nails, you like building things. With that rant behind us, this week’s mathematician spotlight should prove how amazing she was. She impressed mathematicians and scientists- even Albert Einstein praised her work. Emmy Noether is the Wonder Woman of the Week.

In 1935, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to the New York Times explaining that Emmy Noether was the most “creative mathematical genius… since the higher education of women began.” Noether was born in 1882 in Germany and would go on to face tremendous obstacles during her career as a mathematician under Nazi rule. [1]

Emmy was the daughter of a math professor at the University of Erlangen. Three of her brothers would go on to become scientists. All of them were known for being related to Emmy. Because women in Germany were not permitted in college prep schools, Emmy’s early education centered around becoming a teacher. After becoming certified as an English and French teacher, Noether went on to college for a degree in mathematics at her father’s university. [2]

After earning her degree in math at the University of Erlangen, Emmy Noether was ready to become a professor. The problem was that women were not permitted to speak at the university. Instead, she helped her father with his research and acted as his substitute on lecture days he was too sick to teach. During the 1st World War, Noether opposed the war as a pacifist and with the end of the war came a German Republic. Women could vote, but Emmy was still banned from teaching. [3]

During her time at university, Emmy Noether published groundbreaking papers- most of the time under a man’s name. She attended the University of Gottingen for graduate school when Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity. Noether reacted with a paper of her own applying her work to Einstein’s. This work would become known as Noether’s Theorem and explained the ties between the geometry of the universe with the behavior of mass and energy. To fully appreciate her work, I should take the time to explain this theorem further. If something in nature possesses symmetry, predictability, or homogeneity; there is a corresponding conservation of momentum, electricity, or energy. Noether related time and energy as well- which was a profound impact in theoretical physics. [4]

In the 1930’s, students started showing up in Noether’s classes wearing the brown coats of the Hitler Youth. At first, Noether laughed at the fashion, but it was not long before the professor became worried. She was one of the first Jewish professors fired from her post and she quickly fled the country before things got dark. Einstein himself helped Emmy get a position at Bryn Mawr College. Only 18 months later, Nother died from an ovarian cyst at the age of 53. [4]

Emmy Noether worked hard to become a simple math professor. Her work forever changed the field of physics to the point that even Einstein had to give her props. Few people know her name, and even fewer appreciated it. She was banned from teaching for her gender and exiled from her country for her religion. Emmy Noether was however probably the most important woman in the history of mathematics and if there is one name in all that history worth knowing, it’s Emmy Noether.

"Emmy Noether (1882 - 1935)." Profiles of Women in Mathematics: About Emmy Noether. 2005. Accessed April 15, 2015. http://www.awm-math.org/noetherbrochure/AboutNoether.html.

"Emmy Noether: Creative Mathematical Genius." Emmy Noether: Creative Mathematical Genius. Accessed April 15, 2015. https://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/noether.html.

Taylor, Mandie. "Emmy Noether." Emmy Noether. April, 1995. Accessed April 15, 2015. http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/noether.htm.

Angier, Natalie. "The Mighty Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of." The New York Times. March 26, 2012. Accessed April 15, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/science/emmy-noether-the-most-significant-mathematician-youve-never-heard-of.html?_r=0.