She was more than a mathematician to the people she met and to the people she inspired. She even has managed to inspire people long after she has passed. Emmy Noether was born on March 23, 1882 in Bavaria Germany. Growing up she wanted to go to college but back then women weren’t allowed to enroll unless the professors allowed it and in addition she also had to take entrance exam to get in. She wasn’t the only mathematician in her family her dad and brother were also mathematicians. In the article “The Mighty Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of” by Natalie Angier claimed that living in Germany and being a Jewish pacifist is very important to her story because at this time was when Nazis were rising into power. In addition Angier adds that even though this was all going on around her that didn’t hold her back she still would put out amazing work even if she had to use a mans name. Through it all she would apply her work and soon discover the basic rules of abstract algebra and ring theory. An example of something she discovered was how time and energy are related and why. Angier adds that some people even say what she discovered is the “backbone” of what modern physics is built on. To that he also added that she didn’t start off by pursuing to become a mathematician she started off by studying English, French, and piano, which back then was considered “socially acceptable for girls”. In the article “Emmy Noether Google Doodle: Why Einstein called her a ‘creative mathematical genius’” by Michael Cavna stated she met many people some which were top mathematicians during that time. When she completed the classes she was taking she did such an amazing job that she was given something that was equal to receiving a bachelor’s degree. On the website “The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive” by J J O’Connor and E F Robertson add that she didn’t stop there, after that she went to graduate school and attended the University of Göttingen and then went back to the University of Erlangen and stayed there after the rules changed about women and going college. Everyone who worked around her could see how smart and brilliant she was. On the website “The Famous People website” they stated that she went underpaid and unpaid for a long time. Also adding that some tried to find her a job in teaching one that would pay. During this time Einstein came out with a theory that everyone went crazy over including Noether, it even inspired her to create what today people call Noether’s theorem. In the article “The Mighty Mathematician You’ve Never Heard Of” Angier described her theory as “Wherever you find some sort of symmetry in nature, some predictability or homogeneity of parts, you’ll find lurking in the background a corresponding conservation — of momentum, electric charge, energy or the like”. In 1921 she had published the theory of Ideals in Ring Domains which she is most known for. On the website Biographies of Women Mathematician by Mandie Taylor claims that two mathematicians that went by the names of Felix Klein and David Hilbert were trying to define one of Einstein’s theories, they asked Emmy if she would join them but was not sure due to the fact that at the time no other women was working there and wasn’t sure if she would be welcomed. She was right there were some people who didn’t want her there but she still went regardless. She worked really hard to the point where she was offered and accepted an unpaid job lecturing. Later on she started to receive a small salary. In addition she was teaching under her own name and not someone else’s. During the time she was teaching she gained a following who were referred as “Noether Boys”. Noether Boys traveled long distances just to study with her. Noether cared about her students she didn’t just see them as students. The way she would teach was different and some of the students that understood it went on to become mathematicians aswell and would acknowledge Noether for the roll she played in teaching them. One of the awards she received because of her work was the Ackermann-Teubner Memorial Prize. On the website Energy.gov “Five Fast Facts About Mathematician Emmy Noether” it claims that soon Hitler and nazis came into power and made it so that everyone that was Jewish couldn’t work at the universities and after losing her job she moved to the U.S. and started teaching at Bryn Mawr College. On the website “Profiles of Women in Mathematics” by the Association for Women in Mathematics asserted that she spent a lot of time studying abstract algebra paying close attention to things such as rings, fields, and groups. In addition they added that way she looked at certain problems was different from how other experts did and because of this she was able to discover things other mathematicians couldn’t. Within her career of being a mathematician and teacher she has published 40 plus papers and has motivated her students to present their own work that they have discovered. Her work has been acknowledged all over the world till this day after her death where she died from an infection she got after going into surgery to remove a uterine tumor.
I decided to do my research project on Women and Algebra: Life and achievements of Emmy Noether because for me it was something that was very new to me. It was something I really didn’t hear much of in my past math classes and if we did talk about certain people who did something significant in the math world it was more than likely a man that was talked about. I chose my sources by looking a lot of things up. I chose all kinds of different types of material some were very long, others very short, and some in between. Most of the articles and websites I used were giving me repetitive information but I still managed to pick out certain things the others did not state in their work and then put it in my own words.
From doing this research project I learned a lot about Emmy and got a deeper understanding of history as well from reading about her life and more. Something that I learned from this was a deeper understanding of the circumstances women were faced with and to add to that, what Emmy had to deal with because of where she lived and because of her beliefs she was faced with more challenges than others were faced with.In addition to that I learned things that to me, I believe to be huge details about history for example how women in Germany at the time sometimes couldn’t put out work under their own name or even teach under their name they would need to use another man’s name instead. Also something that I found interesting was how others wouldn’t like Emmy working along side with them even though for a very long time she went unpaid and underpaid. Something I found really interesting was how much of an impact what she did and discovered back then has had on a lot of what we are learning today. When I first choose this subject to research I didn’t really know what to expect I thought for the most part it would had just been plain and boring. As I read more and more about Emmy the more I got interested about her life and the circumstances she lived in knowing the history and the time she was living in germany wasn’t the best. In the end what I had thought in the beginning was completely wrong after I was done researching Emmy, her life, and her achievements.
What I read didn’t really catch me by surprise because I had already had an idea of how things were back then because I did learn about Germany and what happened when Hitler was in power, but what did surprise me was how relentless Emmy was when it came to reaching her goals and doing what she loved to do. From what I had read I will remember all but if not all then most of it because to me it was really inspiring to read about the challenges she faced and how she didn’t let that stop her in any way even when she was faced with challenges most people today would have been scared to confront. When I first started this research project I wasn’t really into it but after reading about her I really started getting into it I did enjoy it because learning about Emmy was real in the sense that it was more than just a mathematician who discovered new work. It talked about real struggles and challenges a lot of people faced back then. Which you can’t compare to the challenges people have today because things were much different back then but, her story could have spoken to many people who were around during that time and were in similar positions.
My views on mathematics hasn’t really changed that much but what has changed is my interest in the person behind it. I would want to know more about the person who had made the discoveries and their background if they faced challenges or anything interesting about them other than just a formula for a math problem that they had discovered. The research I did will most definitely have an impact on my studies because of how much of an inspiring story she had. Not only is it inspiring but it’s very motivational for me not to give up on my goals and dreams that I have set up for myself just like she did when she was growing up and faced all the problems in her way head on and never shying away.
I thought this subject was really interesting to look up for many reasons. One just being that it was something different because usually when you learn about “important” people from history they are normally men. In this case it was a women and it’s surprising not a lot of people know about her even though some say what she discovered was the “backbone” of algebra and most people learn algebra when they’re going to highschool school but never find out who really is behind a lot of what they’re teaching.What surprises me even more is that she’s not talked about even though what she went through and the type of work she has published was significant. I also thought her whole story was really intriguing, reading about her challenges was interesting as well. Her story was really inspiring to read about because it’s not something you hear everyday and on top of that the type of person she was when she was alive had a huge impact on the people she met. Even though back then when not everyone was accepting of a women working and publishing work she never let that stop her. Overall I liked learning about Emmy Noether, after starting to read about her it wasn’t as hard to write about her because I was really into the subject.