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Emmy Noether
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Emmy Noether was the greatest female mathematician of the 20th century, and quite possibly of all time. She was the daughter of a mathematician, too, so there is plenty of scope for nature-nurture speculation here. Emmy's father, Max Noether, was a professor of mathematics in the southern German town of Erlangen, just north of Nuremberg. Emmy was born there in 1882. Her career has to be seen in the context of the German empire in which she grew up, the empire of Bismarck (prime minister and chancellor to 1890) and Wilhelm II (German emperor — "Kaiser" — from 1888 to 1918). Of the place of women in that society, the historian Gordon Craig has this to say:
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Emmy Noether's father Max Noether was a distinguished mathematician and a professor at Erlangen. Her mother was Ida Kaufmann, from a wealthy Cologne family. Both Emmy's parents were of Jewish origin and Emmy was the eldest of their four children, the three younger children being boys.
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Emmy Noether taught at Bryn Mawr College until her death in 1935. Teaching at a women's college was very different for Noether. For the first time, she had colleagues that were women. Anna Pell Wheeler, another woman mathematician, was the head of the department at Bryn Mawr, and became a great friend of Noether. Wheeler understood about how Emmy had to struggle to have a career in mathematics in Germany, and about being uprooted from her homeland. Noether was still a caring and compassionate teacher.
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The story of Emmy Noether raises the questions of "nature or nurture"? Did she become a great mathematician by heredity? (after-all, her father was a very high ranking mathematician) or by environment? (he exerted a very strong influence over his children and created a "mathematical atmosphere" in his household). She certainly had the right genes, and she later proved to be a true mathematical genius; but as a very young child, Emmy had exhibited absolutely no interest in mathematics. When her younger brother, Fritz, began to fall under the influence of her father, she eventually had to take up the subject, possibly, in an effort to defend herself in a household of mathematicians.
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Within the world mathematical community, Emmy Noether is widely regarded as the greatest of all woman mathematicians. She was born in the German university town of Erlangen, where her father, Max Noether, was a professor of mathematics. After receiving the Ph.D. degree from the University of Erlangen under Paul Gordan, Dr. Noether moved to the University of Göttingen, known in those days as the Mecca of Mathematics. There she developed as a world-class algebraist and taught a number of doctoral students who eventually became leading algebraists. Noether came to the United States in 1933, where she taught at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia and lectured at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
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Emmy Noether was born in Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany. Her father, Max Noether, was a distinguished mathematician and a professor at Erlangen. Fritz Noether was her younger brother, and the statistician Gottfried E. Noether was her nephew.[3]
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