Friday 1 March 2013

Woman’s History Month 2013 - Day 1


So today marks the first day of Woman’s History Month. The theme, so I’m told, is:

Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination:
Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

Which I think is a pretty good theme, especially as this is one area of history that women are often conveniently left out of, or passed over for their male counterparts. Subsequently to honour this month – and also educate myself a bit more – each day of WHM I am going to honour one women from the annals of science, technology and mathematics history and give them a bit of a cyber pat on the back. There are a few women who did make it to the collective consciousness, so I am going to focus on the ones that didn’t... Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace and Florence Nightingale I salute you all, but please understand your lesser-known sisters need some airtime. I may write short biographies, I might write poems or short stories, depending on my inspiration, I’m going to try and mix it up.

If you can think of anyone you would like me to include over the next 31 days, please email or Tweet me. I will also endeavour to get my facts right (and stay off Wikipedia) but if I have got anything wrong and you can point me to a correct source instead then please let me know! So today I would like to start off with:

Amalie (Emmy) Noether (1882 – 1935)

Emmy Noether has often been referred to as the "most important mathematician you’ve never heard of:, and indeed Albert Einstein called her the most “significant” and “creative female mathematician of all time". She taught at the University of Göttingen, then Bryn Mawr College in the US. Her ground-breaking work in abstract algebra and theoretical physics led to concepts like "Noether's Theorem," "Noetherian rings," and "Noetherian induction."

Emmy was born in Germany in 1882 to a Jewish family, her father being a prominent mathematician at The University of Erlangen. Although originally she was going to train to be a teacher, Emmy enrolled to study maths here too; and after completing her dissertation worked at the Mathematical Institute of Erlangen, without pay, for seven years – because you know, obviously as a woman she couldn’t ACTUALLY be allowed to be on the academic staff.

This would be a theme of her early life, although working for The Circolo Matematico di Palermo, The German Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Institute in Göttingen, she still never secured a paying position. It was at this latter institution though, that she pursued important mathematical work that confirmed key parts of the general theory of relativity. Finally in 1919 she won the right to be a privatdozent – meaning that she would still work without a salary but could teach and charge students directly. In 1922, the University gave her a position as an adjunct professor with a small salary, but with no tenure or benefits. She was well-respected and liked by her students, and during this time worked on her 'ring theory' and ideas that became foundational in abstract algebra. Her work earned her enough recognition that she was invited to guest teach at The University of Moscow and in 1930 at the University of Frankfurt.

During the 1930s the Nazis purged the German universities of Jewish academics and so Emmy fled to America. The 'Emergency Committee to Aid Displaced German Scholars' obtained an offer of a professorship at Bryn Mawr College in America for Emmy, and they paid, with the Rockefeller Foundation, her first year's salary. The grant was renewed for two more years in 1934. This was the first time that Emmy was paid a full professor's salary and accepted as a full faculty member. What could have been a career chance that may have propelled her into the spotlight, alas her success was cut short and she tragically died a year later in 1935 during surgery to remove a tumour.

Her most famous legacy ‘Noether’s Theorum’ has been described by academics as ‘essential’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘integral’. I am not a mathematician so I am not going to attempt to explain it, however for all you maths geeks out there here is a link:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/noether.html

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