Birthday of Emmy Noether (1882)

Emmy Noether transformed abstract algebra. Her 1921 paper on ring ideals founded the theory of Noetherian rings, which generalise the integers. Noether’s theorem (1918) in physics links symmetries and conservation laws: time symmetry → energy conservation; translation symmetry → momentum conservation; rotation symmetry → angular momentum conservation. This is the backbone of modern theoretical physics. Einstein called her ‘the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began’. She was expelled from Göttingen in 1933 because she was Jewish.