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Emmy Noether: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Emmy Noether
Amalie Emmy Noether was born on the 23rd of March 1882 in the Bavarian city of Erlangen, yet her mathematical genius was not immediately obvious to those who knew her as a child. She was near-sighted, spoke with a minor lisp, and was known primarily for being clever and friendly rather than academically outstanding. A family friend later recounted a story from her youth where she quickly solved a complex brain teaser at a children's party, revealing a logical acumen that would define her future. While her peers were learning to cook and clean, and she took piano lessons without passion, she loved to dance and displayed a natural aptitude for logic that would eventually revolutionize the field of mathematics. Her father, Max Noether, was a mathematician, and her mother, Ida Amalia Kaufmann, came from a wealthy Jewish merchant family, but Emmy chose to ignore the conventional path for women of her time. She initially planned to teach French and English after passing her examinations, but instead enrolled at the University of Erlangen, Nuremberg, where her father lectured. This decision was unconventional; two years prior, the Academic Senate had declared that mixed-sex education would overthrow all academic order. She was one of just two women in a university of 986 students, allowed only to audit classes and requiring permission from individual professors to attend lectures. Despite these barriers, she passed her graduation exam on the 14th of July 1903 and began her journey toward becoming the most important woman in the history of mathematics.
The Unpaid Lecturer And The Theorem
In 1915, Emmy Noether was invited by David Hilbert and Felix Klein to join the mathematics department at the University of Göttingen, a world-renowned center of research, but the philosophical faculty objected to her appointment. One faculty member protested that soldiers returning from World War I would not want to learn at the feet of a woman, prompting Hilbert to indignantly remark that the university was not a bathhouse. For four years, Noether lectured under Hilbert's name without pay, providing assistance while her official position remained nonexistent. Her mother died suddenly in Erlangen shortly after Noether arrived in Göttingen, and she returned to care for her aging father before settling into her new role. It was during these early years at Göttingen that she proved the theorem that would become her most famous contribution to physics. Her paper, Invariante Variationsprobleme, was presented by Felix Klein on the 26th of July 1918 because Noether was not a member of the Royal Society of Sciences. The theorem demonstrated that a conservation law is associated with any differentiable symmetry of a physical system, solving a paradox regarding the conservation of energy in general relativity. Albert Einstein later wrote to Hilbert praising the work, noting that it provided a fundamental tool for modern theoretical physics. Despite the significance of her discovery, Noether remained unpaid for her lectures until she was appointed to the special position of Lehrbeauftragte für Algebra a year later. Her frugal lifestyle was a necessity born of this financial exclusion, and she continued to live simply even after receiving a small salary in 1923.
Common questions
When and where was Emmy Noether born?
Amalie Emmy Noether was born on the 23rd of March 1882 in the Bavarian city of Erlangen. Her father Max Noether was a mathematician and her mother Ida Amalia Kaufmann came from a wealthy Jewish merchant family.
What did Emmy Noether prove in 1918 regarding physics?
Emmy Noether proved the theorem that a conservation law is associated with any differentiable symmetry of a physical system. Her paper Invariante Variationsprobleme was presented by Felix Klein on the 26th of July 1918 and solved a paradox regarding the conservation of energy in general relativity.
How did Emmy Noether influence abstract algebra?
Emmy Noether published the paper Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen in 1921 which analyzed ascending chain conditions and proved the Lasker Noether theorem in its full generality. This work gave rise to the term Noetherian for objects which satisfy the ascending chain condition and became the foundation of modern algebra.
Why did Emmy Noether leave Germany in 1933?
Emmy Noether received a notice from the Prussian Ministry for Sciences Art and Public Education in April 1933 which withdrew her right to teach at the University of Göttingen. This decision followed the rise of Nazi activity and the German Student Association attack on the un-German spirit attributed to Jews.
Where did Emmy Noether work after leaving Germany?
Emmy Noether took a position at Bryn Mawr College in the United States starting in late 1933 and began lecturing at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1934. She taught graduate and post-doctoral women including Marie Johanna Weiss and Olga Taussky-Todd at Bryn Mawr.
When and how did Emmy Noether die?
Emmy Noether died on the 14th of April 1935 at the age of 53 after doctors discovered a tumor in her pelvis and found an ovarian cyst during surgery. Her body was cremated and the ashes were interred under the walkway around the cloisters of the Old Library at Bryn Mawr.
While her theorem revolutionized physics, Noether is best remembered among mathematicians for her contributions to abstract algebra, specifically her work on the theory of ideals in commutative rings. In 1921, she published the paper Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen, which analyzed ascending chain conditions and proved the Lasker, Noether theorem in its full generality. This work was so revolutionary that it gave rise to the term Noetherian for objects which satisfy the ascending chain condition, a concept that now bears her name. Before her paper, most results in commutative algebra were restricted to special examples, but Noether proved that in a ring satisfying the ascending chain condition, every ideal is finitely generated. Her approach, known as begriffliche Mathematik or purely conceptual mathematics, involved working directly with abstractions rather than generalizing from known examples. This style was adopted by other mathematicians and became the foundation of modern algebra. In 1924, a young Dutch mathematician named Bartel Leendert van der Waerden arrived at Göttingen and began working with Noether, who provided him with invaluable methods of abstract conceptualization. Van der Waerden later wrote Moderne Algebra, a central two-volume text in the field, and its second volume, published in 1931, borrowed heavily from Noether's work. She did not seek recognition for herself, but her ideas became the foundation for the second volume of his influential textbook, and she was credited with several lines of research published by other mathematicians.
The Noether Boys And The School
At the University of Göttingen, Noether supervised more than a dozen doctoral students, many of whom were officially supervised by other professors due to her lack of tenure. Her first student, Grete Hermann, defended her dissertation in February 1925 and is best remembered for her work on the foundations of quantum mechanics. Hermann later spoke reverently of Noether as her dissertation-mother, and other students like Heinrich Grell and Rudolf Hölzer followed in her wake. Hölzer died of tuberculosis shortly before his defense, while Grell lost his teaching license in 1935 due to accusations of homosexual acts before being reinstated later. Noether's students, often called the Noether Boys, included Max Deuring, Hans Fitting, Ernst Witt, and Chiungtze C. Tsen. Deuring was considered the most promising of her students and was awarded his doctorate in 1930, while Fitting graduated in 1931 with a thesis on abelian groups before dying at the age of 31 from a bone disease. Witt was initially supervised by Noether but was assigned to Gustav Herglotz when her position was revoked in April 1933. Noether developed a close circle of mathematicians beyond just her doctoral students, a group often referred to as the Noether school. She was respected for her consideration of others, combining a demand for mathematical precision with a nurturing attitude. Her loyalty to mathematical precision caused one colleague to name her a severe critic, but she combined this with a helpful and patient guidance of new students. Once, when the building was closed for a state holiday, she gathered the class on the steps outside, led them through the woods, and lectured at a local coffee house.
The Marxist Jewess And The Exile
Politics was not central to Noether's life, but she took a keen interest in political matters and showed considerable support for the Russian Revolution. According to Pavel Alexandrov, she sided more or less with the Social Democrats and was a member of the Independent Social Democrats from 1919 to 1922. This attitude caused her problems in Germany, culminating in her eviction from a pension lodging building after student leaders complained of living with a Marxist-leaning Jewess. When Adolf Hitler became the German Reichskanzler in January 1933, Nazi activity around the country increased dramatically, and the German Student Association led the attack on the un-German spirit attributed to Jews. In April 1933, Noether received a notice from the Prussian Ministry for Sciences, Art, and Public Education which withdrew her right to teach at the University of Göttingen. Several of her colleagues, including Max Born and Richard Courant, also had their positions revoked. Noether accepted the decision calmly, providing support for others during this difficult time. Hermann Weyl later wrote that her courage, frankness, and unconcern about her own fate were a moral solace amidst the hatred and meanness surrounding them. She remained focused on mathematics, gathering students in her apartment to discuss class field theory. When one of her students appeared in the uniform of the Nazi paramilitary organization Sturmabteilung, she showed no sign of agitation and reportedly even laughed about it later. She planned to return to Moscow, an effort for which she received support from Alexandrov, but this proved unsuccessful.
The Final Years At Bryn Mawr
As dozens of newly unemployed professors began searching for positions outside of Germany, Noether was contacted by representatives of Bryn Mawr College in the United States and Somerville College at the University of Oxford. After negotiations with the Rockefeller Foundation, a grant to Bryn Mawr was approved, and she took a position there starting in late 1933. At Bryn Mawr, Noether met and befriended Anna Wheeler, and the college president, Marion Edwards Park, enthusiastically invited mathematicians to see Dr. Noether in action. She formed a group, sometimes called the Noether girls, of four post-doctoral students and one doctoral student, Ruth Stauffer. Stauffer was Noether's only doctoral student in the United States, but Noether died shortly before she graduated. In 1934, Noether began lecturing at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton upon the invitation of Abraham Flexner and Oswald Veblen. She remarked about Princeton University that she was not welcome at the men's university, where nothing female is admitted. Her time in the United States was pleasant, as she was surrounded by supportive colleagues and absorbed in her favorite subjects. In mid-1934, she briefly returned to Germany to see Emil Artin and her brother Fritz, who had been forced out of his job and accepted a position in Siberia. Without incident, Noether returned to the United States and her studies at Bryn Mawr, where she continued to teach graduate and post-doctoral women including Marie Johanna Weiss and Olga Taussky-Todd.
The Death Of A Genius
In April 1935, doctors discovered a tumor in Noether's pelvis, and during the operation, they found an ovarian cyst the size of a large cantaloupe. Two smaller tumors in her uterus appeared to be benign and were not removed to avoid prolonging surgery. For three days she appeared to convalesce normally, and she recovered quickly from a circulatory collapse on the fourth day. On the 14th of April, Noether fell unconscious, her temperature soared, and she died at the age of 53. One of the physicians wrote that it was not easy to say what had occurred, suggesting that there might have been some form of unusual and virulent infection. Her body was cremated, and the ashes were interred under the walkway around the cloisters of the Old Library at Bryn Mawr. A few days after her death, her friends and associates held a small memorial service at College President Park's house. Hermann Weyl and Richard Brauer both traveled from Princeton and delivered eulogies. In the months that followed, written tributes began to appear around the globe, with Albert Einstein joining van der Waerden, Weyl, and Pavel Alexandrov in paying their respects. Einstein wrote in a letter to The New York Times that Noether was the most important woman in the history of mathematics, a sentiment echoed by many of her contemporaries. Her legacy continues to be relevant for the development of theoretical physics and mathematics, and she is considered one of the most important mathematicians of the twentieth century.