Emmy Noether - Mathematician Extraordinaire

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Although she was famous as the "mother of modern algebra," Emmy Noethers life and work have never been the subject of an authoritative scientific biography. Emmy Noether - Mathematician Extraordinaire represents the most comprehensive study of this singularly important mathematician to date. Focusing on key turning points, it aims to provide an overall interpretation of Noethers intellectual development while offering a new assessment of her role in transforming the mathematics of the twentieth century.Hermann Weyl, her colleague before both fled to the United States in 1933, fully recognized that Noethers dynamic school was the very heart and soul of the famous Göttingen community. Beyond her immediate circle of students, Emmy Noethers lectures and seminars drew talented mathematicians from all over the world. Four of the most important were B.L. van der Waerden, Pavel Alexandrov, Helmut Hasse, and Olga Taussky. Noethers classic papers on ideal theory inspiredvan der Waerden to recast his research in algebraic geometry. Her lectures on group theory motivated Alexandrov to develop links between point set topology and combinatorial methods. Noethers vision for a new approach to algebraic number theory gave Hasse the impetus to pursue a line of research that led to the Brauer-Hasse-Noether Theorem, whereas her abstract style clashed with Tausskys approach to classical class field theory during a difficult time when both were trying to find their footing in a foreign country.Although similar to Proving It Her Way: Emmy Noether, a Life in Mathematics, this lengthier study addresses mathematically minded readers. Thus, it presents a detailed analysis of Emmy Noethers work with Hilbert and Klein on mathematical problems connected with Einsteins theory of relativity. These efforts culminated with her famous paper "Invariant Variational Problems," published one year before she joined the Göttingen faculty in 1919.      

Autorenportrait

David E. Rowe is professor emeritus for history of mathematics and natural sciences at Mainz University. He is the author of A Richer Picture of Mathematics: The Göttingen Tradition and Beyond, Springer, 2018.

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