Meet the Woman Einstein Called a Mathematical Genius: Who Almost Wasn't Allowed to Teach
Emmy Noether: Mother of modern Algebra
Emmy Noether, a German mathematician, is known for her remarkable work in abstract algebra and Noether’s theorem in theoretical physics that connects symmetry to the nature of physical laws.
Before Noether, physicists knew about the Energy and momentum conservation laws, as they were experimentally observed. However, it was Noether who proved why this happens, and it directly flows from symmetry using rigorous mathematics.
In mathematics, she developed foundational concepts in abstract algebra, what are now known as Noetherian rings, which impose finiteness condition that is important and makes proofs and structures solvable.
In cryptography and coding theory, the modern algebra that is used is built on her mathematical framework. Today, due to her lasting contribution to the field, she is remembered as the mother of modern algebra.
But very few know the hardships she went through in her life for being a woman.
In 1907, Emmy completed her doctorate in Invariant Theory in mathematics from the University of Erlangen, under Paul Gordan. She was the second person, and the very first woman to earn a degree in mathematics at this University.
After completing her doctorate, she assisted her Father Max Noether and her phd advisor and continued her research without any salary for 7-8 years, purely because she was a woman.
In 1915, she was invited by Felix Klein and David Hilbert to the University of Göttingen, which was the best university in the world for mathematics that time, to complete her Habilitation*.
However the senate refused it simply because she was a woman. Therefore she had to taught under Hilbert’s name for the next 4 years unpaid and uncredited.
In 1919, after Germany became a republic she became an independent University lecturer. However she was still paid very little, as an untenured, unofficial associate professor.
In 1920s, she did the foundational and groundbreaking work in abstract algebra, despite her work she was never fully paid. In 1933, when the Nazi came to power in Germany, she was dismissed from her position for being Jewish, and then emigrated to the USA and joined a position at Bryn Mawr College. In 1935, at the age of 53, she died suddenly from complications after a surgery.
On her obituary, Albert Einstein wrote in a letter to New York times:
“In the judgment of the most competent living mathematicians, Fräulein Noether was the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began. In the realm of algebra, in which the most gifted mathematicians have been busy for centuries, she discovered, methods which have proved of enormous importance in the development of the present-day younger generation of mathematicians.”
Emmy Noether’s decade of unpaid, unrecognized work is a reminder of the struggles that societal discrimination imposes even on genius. Though few records left about how she herself felt about the difficulties she faced as a woman but her life tells its own story that despite all these hardships she rose above the level of gender identity, and proved herself a mathematician first.
In today’s scenario, we come across gender based guidelines and laws for equal diversity and opportunity supporting women. But are these law sufficient to eradicate the gender bias in a human being? Maybe we have not asked the deeper question - Before the society sees her a woman, does she herself first identify as a woman or as a human?
Before identifying ourselves with a gender role given to us by society, it is worth pausing to think about what Acharya Prashant says that A woman has a female body but she is not a woman, she is a human consciousness first.
*Habilitation : A post-doctoral qualification, after PhD, required to be allowed to teach as independent faculty at a German university, without it ,one could not officially hold a Professorship
