Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 4, 2008



Emmy Noether (1882–1935) was a German Jewish mathematician who is known for her seminal contributions to abstract algebra. Often described as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, she revolutionized the theories of rings, fields, and algebras. She is also known for her contributions to modern theoretical physics, especially for the first Noether's theorem which explains the connection between symmetry and conservation laws. By the time she delivered a major address at the 1932 International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich, her algebraic acumen was recognized around the world. The following year, Germany's Nazi government had her fired from the University of Göttingen, and she moved to the United States, where she took a position at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. In 1935, she underwent surgery for an ovarian cyst and, despite signs of speedy recovery, died four days later at the age of 53. Noether's mathematical work has been divided into three "epochs". In the first (1908–19), she made valuable contributions to the theories of algebraic invariants and number fields. In the second epoch (1920–26) Noether developed the theory of ideals in commutative rings into a powerful tool with wide-ranging applications. In the third epoch (1927–35), she published major works on noncommutative algebras, as well as united hypercomplex numbers and the representation theory of groups with the theory of modules and ideals. (more...)

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