How Did Emmy Noether Contribute To Science

Emmy Noether – Woman in Science
Women throughout history have struggled against restrictions placed on them from their patriarchal society. There are many exceptional women who have fought and continue to fight against societal norms that prevent women from achieving their goals. Emmy Noether is a Jewish and German mathematician who faced many challenges to become one of the most important mathematicians of all time. Albert Einstein said “In the judgment of the most competent living mathematicians, Fräulein Noether was the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced...” (Einstein 1935). While Emmy Noether is not well known to the general population, her theories are used throughout mathematics and theoretical physics even
An important revelation was Noether’s theorem. She published this theorem in 1918 which discussed the symmetry seen with conservation of energy (Noether 1918). This theorem is still used as a basis for many theoretical physics and calculus problems. She also contributed theories in abstract algebra involving invariants and the development of the structure theory of commutative rings (O’Connor 2014). These are a few of the countless theories she published or helped produce. Her invariant theory helped to resolve an issue scholars had with Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity (Dick 1981). She was granted Ackermann-Tuebner Memorial Award for her ground-breaking work in 1932 along with Emil Artin (O’Connor 2014). Overall, her contributions in the field of mathematics and theoretical physics are countless and still relevant
Emmy could not be a real mathematics student at the University because women were not allowed to study alongside men at the time (O’Connor 2014). Noether had to obtain special permission from the professor to listen in on lectures (O’Connor 2014). Luckily at this time, rules were changed and women were allowed to attend university alongside men in Germany (Dick 1981). Emmy’s hard work payed off and she received her doctorate (O’Connor 2014). She was only one of two women students in the university at the time (Dick 1981). Noether kept pursuing her studies of mathematics even though society was preventing her from doing so. Her perseverance showed how ambitious and hardworking she is as an individual. In addition, her dedication to her studies even when being prevented from doing so is astounding. These qualities she possessed seem to be a common trait for women who pursued science in the early