Happy Birthday Emmy Noether!
If you’re reading this on March 23, join me in celebrating Emmy Noether’s Birthday!! Noether is one of the most brilliant female mathematicians to ever walk on this planet.
She was born Amalie Emmy Noether, in 1882 to Ida Kaufman and mathematician, Max Noether in Erlangen, Germany. Noether is the acclaimed mathematician of a theorem named after her called Noether’s theorem. What follows are a couple of videos to help you understand Noether’s Theorem.
One of my favorite works written by Noether is her 1921 paper titled Theory of Ideals in Rings. It became the foundation of General Commutative Ring Theory.
If you are interested in learning more about abstract algebra, I highly recommend the book Contemporary Abstract Algebra by Joseph A. Gallian.
Her ashes were placed under the pathway at the Cloisters within the M. Carey Thomas Library at Bryn Mawr College. This pathway serves as a perfect metaphorical reminder. No doubt, she overcame difficult obstacles and in the process, Emmy Noether forged a far-reaching path for women in mathematics. As women in science, we often think about our hurdles, and we often feel like we are alone. But Emmy Noether’s life serves as a perfect reminder for us women in STEM that our hurdles will always be there. She exemplified what really matters for us. It is that we refuse to let our circumstances dictate the outcome of our lives, that we refuse to be distracted from our cerebral ideas, and that we refuse to let our circumstances pull us away from the scientific ideals that allow us to contribute to science.
