Biography Project

Part 0 – Basic Facts

When did this person live and die?

Where were they born, where did they work?

On March 23, 1882, Emmy Noether was born in Erlangen, which is a town in Bavaria. She taught at various universities, including the University of Erlangen, University of Göttingen, and the University of Moscow. She went on to work at Bryn Mawr in the United States. On April 14 1935, she died in after several tumors were discovered in her pelvis.

Part 1 – The Work. What did this person do?

What did they accomplish in their field?

Emmy Noether has become famous for her influence in the field of abstract algebra. In the history of mathematics, she has come to be regarded as one of the most influential women. All of her work was divided into “three epochs; the first dealing with invariant theory, the second commutative rings, and the third noncommutative algebra”. She proved Noether’s theorem, which

What did other scientists think of them?

Pavel Alexandrov and Hermann Weyl, who were her colleagues, and Albert Einstein all consider Noether to be “the greatest woman to ever work in the mathematics field”. The respect she garnered from her colleagues was evidenced when Albert Einstein asked her for assistance in the development of one of his theories; she was the only woman on the faculty. Respect was again shown to her in 1964 when she was the only woman honored at the World’s Fairs’ “Men of Modern Mathematics” exhibit.

Part 2 – The Person. Who was this person? How did he/she get that way?

What challenges did they overcome in their personal lives?

Emmy Noether struggled to gain respect from her male colleagues. During her lifetime, her field was dominated by the male sex. As a result, she pushed herself to work harder. She put herself in situations where she was the only female; working with Einstein and at the World’s Fair. Although she feared that she would not be received well by those around her, she did not let that stop her.

Emmy was also forced to deal with hatred from her society. She was living and working in Germany when the Nazi party came into power. She was Jewish and as a result her entire life was uprooted during World War II. Her brother, who was a professor like herself, moved his family to Siberia to protect himself. Emmy moved all the way to the United States, where she began working at Bryn Mawr, in order to stay safe. Although she enjoyed working with other females (Bryn Mawr is an all-female college), she was still saddened to have left her native homeland.

What kind of relationship did they have with their family members?

Although Emmy was the oldest of four children, she and her brother Fritz were the only ones who survived. Her interests aligned with her brother's, for he was also a mathematician. It is clear that they received their mathematical talents from their father, Max Noether, who was also a noted mathematician.

Part 3 – The Society. What kind of world did this person live in?

What were the usual expectations of women in this society? What limits were there? Emmy Noether lived in a time where women were considered second class citizens. They were treated as inferiors to men, and were expected to cook, clean, and care for children around the house. This was not what Emmy wanted to do. She was a hard-working female who was passionate about math. She did not wish to stay at home, caring for others. She wanted to forge ahead and do great things.

What were some of the biggest issues that people worried about at that time? Emmy was alive and working during the Second World War. It was hard because she was Jewish and was based in Germany. Hitler and his party expelled her from her job as a professor at the University of Gottingen. Luckily for Emmy, she was offered a position at Bryn Mawr, so she was able to flee to the United States. If she had not been granted this opportunity, there is a great possibility that she would have been taken to a concentration camp like millions of other Jews. Her passion for and skill in math saved her life.

Part 4 – Interactions. Consider how the work, the person, and the society influenced one another.
Did this person's work influence their family life, or vice versa? Because Emmy was an educated woman, she was able to secure good jobs for herself. She was not always graced with respect, but she always earned it eventually. Because of the Nazi Party in Germany during World War II, her family was forced to uproot their lives. Emmy's brother Fritz moved his family to Siberia to escape persecution and Emmy could have gone with him. Her knowledge and skill landed her a job in America though. Although she was safe, she was far from her family members. Her life was completely different from theirs.

Did the politics or values of his/her/our society influence this person's work, or vice versa? It is probably safe to say that the values of Emmy Noether's time, that men were superior to women, shaped her work. She expected her life to lead down a path where she taught a language, but instead she ended up as a mathematician. This is ironic because math is one of the only unbiased subjects in society. There is no segregation when dealing with numbers and symbols. Since Emmy lived in such a turbulent time, it is rather ironic that she would excel in such a stable field as mathematics where there is a right answer and a wrong answer.

Part 5 – How did she cope when men tried to sabotage her career at every opportunity? Although many men felt that Emmy Noether was not deserving of respect within the field of mathematics, she proved them wrong by releasing over 40 papers and numerous theorems. She also aligned herself with genius (e.g. Albert Einstein) and gained assistance from some of her male friends. Through hard work and determination she overcame the adversity of sexism and established herself as a remarkably noteworthy mathematician.

My information was obtained from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_Noether. and

http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/noether.htm