Top 10 Interesting Facts about Emmy Noether

Emmy Noether by Wikimedia commons

Top Ten Interesting Facts about Emmy Noether

Emmy Noether was born on 23 March 1882. She was a German mathematician who made important contributions to abstract algebra. She discovered Noether’s First and Second theorem. Emmy was the first born among the Noethers. Her parents are Max Noether, and Ida Amali Kaufmann.

She was born to a Jewish family. She did not stand out academically although she was known for being clever and friendly. She was never married and if she had love affairs, she never trumpeted them. In the article are the top ten interesting facts about Emmy Noether.

1. Her father was a mathematician

Max Noether by Wikimedia commons

Max Noether, Emmy’s father was a German mathematician. He worked on geometry mathematics and the theory of algebraic functions. Geometry algebra is a branch of algebra that classically focuses on zeros of multivariate polynomials. He has been called one of the finest mathematicians of the 19th century.

2. She was born with disorders

Noether was short-sighted. Short-sightedness is a disorder of the eyes where the eyeball is too long. It is a type of refractive error associated with headaches and eye strain. It can be transmitted from parents by genetic linkage.

Noether also talked with a minor lisp. A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants like [s], [z], [ts], [dz], and many other sibilants. The misarticulates often result in unclear speech. So, Noether had unclear speech due to the minor lisp.

3. Her brothers were learned

Although the information of the youngest brother in the Noethers is unknown, Emmy’s two brothers were highly educated known people. The eldest brother Alfred Noether was born in 1883, he was awarded a doctorate in chemistry from Erlangen in 1909. He died nine years later.

Their second brother Fritz Noether was born in 1884. He studied in Munich where he earned himself a reputation in applied mathematics. He was executed in the Soviet Union in 1941 while serving his country Germany in World War II.

4. She was bright in languages

Emmy showed early proficiency in English and French. In the spring of 1900, she took her examinations for the teachers in these two languages and she passed. She got an overall score of very good. Due to her performance, she was qualified to teach the same languages in girls’ schools. However, Emmy Noether decided to further her studies at the University of Erlangen.

5. Paul Gordan was her mentor

Paul A. Gordan by Wikimedia commons

After the restrictions on women’s participation in the Gottingen University were rescinded, Emmy decided to go back to school. She officially returned to Erlangen and enrolled as a student. She strictly was there to study mathematics under the supervision of Paul Gordan.

Paul Gordan was a Jewish-German mathematician. He was a member of the computational school of invariant researchers. Noether’s thesis ended with a list of over 300 explicitly worked-out invariants. The Invariants though were superseded later by the more abstract and general approach pioneered by Hilbert.

6. She taught at Erlangen

Erlangen University by Hobbitschuster – Wikimedia commons

She joined Erlangen as a lecturer from 1908 to 1915. She substituted her father when he was ill to lecture. During the seven years at Erlangen, she never was paid. In 1910 and 1911 she published an extension of her thesis work from three variables to n variables.

Ernest Fischer who joined the institution when Paul Gordon retired, became an important influencer on Noether according to Hermann Weyl. It was Fischer who introduced Emmy to David Hilbert’s work.

Noether published several papers extending and applying Hilbert’s methods to mathematical objects such as fields of rational functions and the invariants of finite groups. Noether and Fischer would share a lot after lecturers and the lively enjoyment of mathematics. She often wrote him postcards continuing her training on mathematical thoughts.

7. She taught at Gottingen Univesity

In the spring of 1915, David Hilbert who was Noether’s idol in mathematics invited her to return to the University of Gottingen. Felix Klein also wanted her to return to the University. The effort to recruit Emmy though was blockaded by gender inequality from philologists and historians.

Some protested: ” What will our soldiers think when yey return to the university and find that they are required to learn at the feet of a woman?” Hilbert though gave reasoning to them that the university was a learning institution and not a bathhouse.

During her first year teaching at Gottingen, Emma did not have an official position in the institution. She nevertheless was not paid. Her family supported her by paying for her room

8. She came up with the Noether’s theorem

Emm Noether by Konrad Jacobs – Wikimedia commons

Soon after arriving at Gottingen, her lectures were often advertised under Hilbert’s name. However, she demonstrated her capabilities by proving the theorem now known as Nother’s theorem. The theorem states that every differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system with conservative forces has a corresponding conservation law.

Noether though did not present the paper but her friend did. She could not present her paper because she was not a member of the Royal Society of Sciences at Gottingen. Scientists such as Leon Lederman and Christopher Hill accredited her theory in their books.

They said that her theory is one of the most crucial mathematical theories ever proved in guiding the development of modern physics ( a branch of physics developed in the early 20th century). The theory is possibly on a par with the Pythagorean theorem.

9. She lost her job during the Nazi German’s reign

Emmy Noether by Wikimedia commons

When Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of German in January 1933, Nazi activity around the country increased. Tension in the university of Gottingen increased during lectures regarding the type of mathematics to be taught. Jewish mathematics was opposed in the institution. The un-German spirit was aided by Werner Weber a former student of Noether.

In 1933, Emmy received a notice from the Prussian Ministry of Sciences, Art, and Public Education dismissing her from work. The notice read, ” On the basis of paragraph 3 of the Civil Service Code of 7 April 1933, I hereby withdraw you from the right to teach at the University of Gottingen.”

Noether accepted the decision peacefully but that was not the end of her teaching career. She gathered students in her apartment to discuss class field theory. Fascinating was that even the Nazi followers attended her lectures in Nazi uniforms. She did not hesitate thogh but he continued with her job.

10. She died a few days after surgery

Emmy Noether and Oswald Veblen by Konrad Jacobs – Wikimedia commons

1n April 1955, doctors discovered a tumor in Noether’s pelvis. She was bedridden for two days for observation. During the operation, an ovarian cyst was discovered and it was the size of a large cantaloupe. During the operation, two tumors were discovered in her uterus but were not removed for the fear of prolonging the surgery.

For three days Noether appeared to recuperate normally, and she recovered quickly from a circulatory collapse on the fourth. She fell unconscious on 14 April 1935. Her temperature raised 42 degrees celsius and she died. None of her physicians wrote on the cause of her death and still, it remains unknown.

Noether was respected for her mathematical insight, her consideration for others, and her helpfulness to her students. Her loyalty to mathematics caused one colleague to name her ” a severe critic” She was completely unegotistical and free of vanity. She never claimed for herself but promoted the work of her students.