A vote is taking place today at the General Conference on Weights and Measures in Paris, to change the definition of the unit of mass, the kilogram.
You're reading: News
- have contributed to the field of science
- be real – so no fictional characters please
- not be alive – Her Majesty the Queen is the only exception
- have shaped thought, innovation, leadership or values in the UK
- inspire people, not divide them
- Emmy Noether was born on 23 March 1882 in Erlangen, Germany to Max Noether and Ida Kaufmann.
- From 1889-1897 Noether attended Höhere Töchter Schule in Erlangen (girls school). She studied German, arithmetic, French and English, and learned the piano.
- When she was young, she loved dancing and “used to look forward to family parties”.
- “As a child, Emmy gave no sign of precociousness or extraordinary ability and was indistinguishable from all the other young girls in Erlangen”
- Emmy Noether’s father Max was also famously a mathematician, and so was her younger brother Fritz.
- In 1900 she decided to attend university in Erlangen – but as girls were not trained to prepare for the entrance exam at school, Emmy had to spend 3 years preparing for the exam independently.
- At Erlangen, Noether was one of only two women in a university of 986 students, and was only allowed to audit classes rather than participate fully. She required the permission of individual professors whose lectures she wished to attend.
- Although it had been well received, Noether later described her thesis and a number of subsequent similar papers she produced as “crap”.
- After completing her dissertation in 1907, she worked at the Mathematical Institute of Erlangen without pay for seven years, since at the time, women were largely excluded from academic positions.
-
Drawing of Emmy Noether by @Coni777
In 1908 she was elected member of the Circolo Matematico di Palermo. In 1909 she was elected member of the Germany Mathematical Society, and started giving lectures at their meetings.
- She moved to Göttingen on the invitation of David Hilbert and Felix Klein. Klein and Hilbert asked for a position for Emmy, and for her to be able to pass the Habilitation and become “Privatdozent” (person who has permission to lecture at university). For this, the whole philosophy faculty had to agree, which included philosophers, historians, and philologists, who refused. Hilbert solved this by having her lecture in his stead.
- “I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission as Privatdozent [teaching assistant]. After all, we are a university and not a bathing establishment.” David Hilbert
- “I have completely forgotten the symbolic calculus.” Emmy Noether, Letter to Helmut Hasse (April 14, 1932)
- In 1932 she received the Alfred Ackermann-Teubner Memorial Prize for the Advancement of Mathematical Knowledge, and was the the first woman to be Plenary speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians.
- In 1933, Nazis forced the retirement of Jews and all civil servants with at least one Jewish grandparent. This included university staff, and Emmy left her post at Göttingen.
- Bryn Mawr University invited Emmy to move to the US as a guest professor, thanks to a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Many other displaced German academics also found places to work in the USA during this time.
- In 1934 Noether also later lectured at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, but she found it less welcoming, calling it “the men’s university, where nothing female is admitted”.
- She continually advised her students to read and re-read Dedekind’s works, in which she saw an inexhaustible source of inspiration. When praised for her own innovations, she used to repeat: “Es steht alles schon bei Dedekind.”
- Much of Noether’s work in abstract algebra was studying rings – sets of objects with two different ways to combine them – such as the ring of whole numbers (integers) with addition and multiplication. Of particular interest are ideals, which are particular subsets of a ring.
- A Noetherian ring is a ring with some extra properties – in particular, one that satisfies the ascending chain condition on left and right ideals. This means a sequence of nested ideals, each of which sits inside the previous, cannot continue getting smaller forever. If a ring has this property, it immediately follows that it has many other useful properties. Rational numbers, real numbers and complex numbers (and in fact all fields) are examples of Noetherian rings.
- The Lasker–Noether theorem states that every Noetherian ring is a Lasker ring – it can be considered an extension of Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic, in that it shows algebraic sets can be decomposed in the same way numbers decompose into primes.
- Noether’s (first) theorem states that every differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system has a corresponding conservation law. It explains the mathematical origin of conservation of energy and momentum in physics.
- “If one proves the equality of two numbers A and B by showing first that A≤B and then that B≤A it is unfair; one should instead show that they are really equal by disclosing the inner ground for their equality.” – Emmy Noether
- In 1958 the University of Erlangen organised a meeting, invited her former students and their students, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of her degree and discuss her work, applications and influence.
- Noether was featured at an exhibition at the 1964 World’s Fair devoted to Modern Mathematicians – but was the only woman represented there.
- A street in her hometown of Erlangen is named after Emmy and her father; Emmy-Noether-Weg (Emmy Noether Way) in Göttingen is also named after her, and in Unterschleißheim, near Munich, a ring-road is cleverly named Emmy-Noether-Ring.
- Many other things have been named or renamed after Noether, including her former high school, a crater on the moon and a minor planet, and many other awards, scholarship programmes and university buildings.
- LEGO have now released several Women in Science sets, featuring famous female scientists – but no Emmy Noether minifigure. What should it look like? What other toys could celebrate her life?
- For Emmy Noether’s birthday in 2015, Google celebrated with a Google Doodle, which displayed many of the areas to which she contributed, including topology, ascending/descending chains, Noetherian rings, time, group theory, conservation of angular momentum, and continuous symmetries.
- “It surely is not much of an exaggeration to call her the mother of modern algebra.” Irving Kaplansky
Young Researcher applications open for HLF 2019
The Heidelberg Laureate Forum is an annual gathering of maths and computer science prize laureates, including Abel Prize winners and Fields Medalists, together with 200 young researchers from across maths and computer science. It’s a great opportunity for the researchers to meet each other and the Laureates, and see talks from the leading lights in the field. From the HLF press release:
The 7th HLF will take place from September 22 to 27, 2019 […]. This prominent, versatile event combines scientific, social and outreach activities in a unique atmosphere, fuelled by comprehensive exchange and scientific inspiration. Laureate lectures, young researcher workshops and a structure welcoming unfettered discussions are the elements that compose the Forum’s platform.
Over the course of the weeklong conference, young researchers will be given the exclusive possibility to profoundly connect with their scientific role models and find out how the laureates made it to the top of their fields. As described by a young researcher, “It’s a life-changing experience. Getting the opportunity to actually speak to the laureates in close contact can really shape us.”
Applications are now open (until 15th February) for the 2019 HLF – if you are or know someone who’s an undergrad, postgrad or postdoc in maths or computer science who might enjoy a week away in scenic Bavaria with some of the world’s greatest mathematicians and computer scientists, applications can be made at application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org.
Nominate a mathematician for the new £50 note
The Bank of England is asking for nominations for someone to picture on the new £50 note, and is encouraging it to be a scientist, engineer or mathematician.
This morning @bankofengland made an exciting announcement in our Mathematics Gallery. It's time for a fresh face on the new £50 note! They want to feature a scientist and are asking you to nominate someone noteworthy. #thinkscience https://t.co/VTMgzIWwrt pic.twitter.com/bghF0qFVrz
— Science Museum (@sciencemuseum) November 2, 2018
Non-UK readers might like to know the £50 note is the largest denomination note, rarely seen by most people.
The Bank of England website says:
You can nominate as many people as you like. But anyone who appears on the new £50 note must:
You can suggest anyone who has contributed to the fields of pure or applied science. That could include: astronomy, biology, bio-technology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, medical research, physics, technology and zoology.
More information
Think science for the new £50 note at the Bank of England’s website.
#Noethember: daily Emmy doodling starts on Thursday
Thursday is the first day of #Noethember, our month of Emmy Noether-themed illustration (see our previous post on this for more info). Anyone can take part, and share their work on Twitter (or Instagram) using the hashtag. Below is a list of 30 topics for you to use to guide your drawings, one for each day in November. We’ll retweet and share our favourites from @Aperiodical, and at the end of the month we’ll round up some of the best.
Anyone, of any level of skill or experience, is welcome to draw, and since our topics are fairly specific, you shouldn’t worry if you feel like you’re drawing the same thing as others – but interesting/alternative takes on the facts are also good! Our ringleader (LOL), Constanza Rojas-Molina, hopes to be drawing something every day, but you shouldn’t feel pressure to produce a beautiful full illustration for each fact – a tiny sketch is fine, and if anything particularly inspires you can spend more time on it.
Sources for our Noether facts include:
Emmy Noether in Bryn Mawr. Proceedings of a Symposium Sponsored by the Association for Women in Mathematics in Honor of Emmy Noether’s 100th Birthday (Springer, 1983)
Emmy Noether, on Wikipedia
Emmy Noether, on Wikiquote
#Noethember: illustrating a life
The month of October is known to illustrators and doodlers on Twitter by a different name: #inktober, started in 2009 by illustrator Jake Parker. The challenge is to draw at least one thing each day in October, using ink, and post it on Twitter. 31 days, 31 drawings, and a given theme for a doodle each day. It’s a way to motivate and encourage artistic output, which can be especially helpful if you’re in a bit of a slump creatively, but also a chance to share some nice drawings and have a bit of fun.
Mathematician, blogger and illustrator Constanza Rojas-Molina has had an even better idea, and we’re helping her organise #Noethember. It’s the same idea – 30 days, 30 drawings, but this time each day the theme is a fact or story about the life and work of mathematician Emmy Noether.
We’re pronouncing it ‘nert-ember’, since Noether (Nöther) is pronounced with a hard T.
The IMU wants to make π Day the International Day of Mathematics
The International Mathematical Union is trying to get UNESCO to make March 14, commonly known as π Day, the International Day of Mathematics.
Alex Bellos’ The Supercalculators on BBC R4
Maths perpetrator Alex Bellos has been on Radio 4 again, this time meeting some of the competitors in the Mental Calculation World Cup, which is held annually in Germany. It went out on Radio 4 last night, and will be repeated again next Monday at 9pm, plus you can listen online.