Amalie Emmy Noether was born on March 23rd, 1882 in Bavaria Germany and she was the oldest daughter of Max Noether and Amalia Kaufmann (Emmy Noether). She has three younger brothers. Emmy’s father was a mathematician and her mother was a well off merchant’s daughter (Kimberling 1981). She was not known for getting good grades and did not excel in school. Those closest to her, however, said she was clever. As with most women during the time, she was taught gendered household chores such as cooking and cleaning (Osen 1974).
In order for her to attend college classes, she had to audit them instead of just enrolling because the university thought mixing the sexes in class would upset some archaic balance. She could have taught French and English since she showed enough proficiency, but only at all-girl’s school. Emmy Noether was a clever woman who wanted to do what she wanted to do. What she wanted was to study mathematics. Emmy Noether’s understanding of mathematics, like other mathematicians at the time, was heavily influenced by Einstein’s theories.
A few years later, the University of Erlangen finally allowed women to enter the university and actually participate instead of just watching the lectures as Emmy resorted to after a time at the University of Göttingen continuing her auditing practice. She returned to Erlangen to reenroll and declared her major in mathematics (Osen 1974).
She became a teacher at the University in 1908, a position held almost exclusively by men, but received no pay. During her teaching time, she came upon David Hilbert’s work on Invariant Theory, and she applied those mathematical methods to expand her own theories. Hilbert later tried to recruit her but the more conservative minded faculty members stopped him claiming it would be wrong to make soldiers returning from war to “learn at the feet of women” (Kimberling 1981). This way of thinking prevented women from teaching in western countries even as people realized how foolish that line of thinking is. Given what waits for Germany after WWI makes me wonder if a variety of teachers with varying experiences might have curbed the horrors that took place in WWII.
The opinions of the University of Göttingen faculty did not matter much since her mother suddenly passed two weeks after she left, and she returned home to care for her father. When she returned to Göttingen to teach she was not given an official position, but rather was appointed as David Hilbert’s assistant (Kimberling 1981). She showed all those who doubted her ability by proving her theorem.
After WWI, the western world became more open to change but Emmy would not get a salary until 1923. In other words, Ms. Noether worked most of her life in an area where few people appreciated her talent and even fewer wanted her to get any sort of monetary compensation for all her brilliant work.
At the start of WWII, as Adolf Hitler rose to power, Emmy Noether lost her teaching position as his ideology took hold. Anyone who was Jewish or suspect in any way was removed from his or her position. This tension at home forced her and other teachers to look for places outside of Germany. This brought Emmy to the U.S. and to the Bryn Mawr College in 1933 (Kimberling 1981).
Sadly, in 1935, tumors were discovered in her pelvis and uterus and she died shortly after surgery to remove the one in her pelvis. After her death, those whose work she impacted from around the world wrote tributes in her memory. She was cremated and her ashes were lain to rest in a walkway at Bryn Mawr (Kimberling 1981).
