profeminist:Emmy Noether: Why Einstein called her a ‘creative mathematical genius’“IN 1935, writing
profeminist:Emmy Noether: Why Einstein called her a ‘creative mathematical genius’“IN 1935, writing to the New York Times, Albert Einstein did not tame his praise.“In the judgment of the most competent living mathematicians,” penned the great man, “Fräulein Noether was the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began.”After a lifetime of being discouraged and disallowed, underpaid and unpaid, doubted and ousted, Emmy Noether had reached the pinnacle of peer respect among her fellow giants of mathematical science.“In the realm of algebra, in which the most gifted mathematicians have been busy for centuries,” Einstein continued in his letter, “she discovered methods which have proved of enormous importance in the development of the present-day younger generation of mathematicians.”In her native Germany, Noether had sometimes been blocked and barred as a student because of her gender; in time, though, she had nurtured the next waves of great students. Noether had risen against wall after wall of obstacles to work on such areas as ring theory; now she was counted among those in a most rarefied academic circle.Noether studied French and English as a girl growing up in Bavaria, but upon reachng adulthood, she followed her father (Max Noether) and a brother (Fritz) into math, and it was there she discovered and gave her full expression to the poetry of logical ideas. But at the University of Erlangen, and then at Gottingen University, she was allowed only to audit classes because she was not male.Noether was finally able to receive her mathematics doctorate in 1907, but from the next year till 1915, she worked at the Mathematical Institute of Erlangen without the benefit of a paycheck. She was able, however, to begin working on theoretical algebra — her poetry of the possible and beyond — that would prove the foundation for much of her fame.”Read the full piece here -- source link