Auguste Dick

Emmy Noether was one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th Century and the greatest algebraist (except, maybe, Andrew Wiles?). She revolutionised the approach to her field and, entirely by accident, proved a connection between symmetry laws and conservation laws which has profound consequences for physics. Despite this, she is much less famous than many of her contemporaries, such as Hilbert, Weyl and Klein. Proper recognition of her talents and acheivements, outside the abstract algebra community is only just beginning.

She lived at a time of widespread institutional and individual sexism and anti-Semetism and at that point in history, in the worst possible country for a female Jew - Germany. Anybody who came into close acquaintance with her realised her unique genius but, despite their best efforts, she was never able to obtain a proper, permanent academic post and, with the rise of the Nazis, she had to emigrate to the USA in order to carry on working in any academic capacity.

She died suddenly and unexpectedly of complications from what should have been a routine surgical procedure at the height of her mathematical powers, a very unusual state of affiars as most mathematicians do their best work before they are 30.

This biography seems to be written by a mathematician for other mathematicians. The details of Noether's life are sketchy, because there isn't much documentary evidence and there is no attempt to explain what Noether's acheivements were to people without a very advanced education in algebra. There are, however, reprints of three obituaries appended to the main text and one of these (Weyl's) takes on the task with moderate success - but still probably unintelligible to people without a significant mathematical background.

I think people should read this book regradless of their level of mathematical education and just skim the technical stuff if it seems like gibberish in order to understand what an extraordinary talent Noether had and what she, with unfailing positivity, had to put up with in order to do her lastingly influential, pioneering work.… (plus d'informations)