Doctor Curmudgeon “A Mathematical Genius”

By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAP Doctor Eisman is in Family Practice in Aventura, Florida with her partner, Dr. Eugene Eisman, an internist/cardiologist

“A mathematical genius”—said Albert Einstein, when he spoke about Amalie Emmy Noether.

I had never heard of her. But when a genius called someone else a genius—it made me want to learn more.

Emmy’s father was a professor of mathematics at the University of Erlangen in Germany.

In 1882, when Emmy was born, careers for women were limited. She became fluent in English and French and planned to teach. Teaching was an acceptable choice for a woman—but not at a university level.

Her great love was mathematics and she was able to achieve a doctorate where her father taught at the University of Erlangen.

When he passed away, Emmy was allowed to teach his lectures. Since women were not suited to hold academic positions, her lectures were listed under a male colleague’s name. It was enough of a concession to allow a woman to teach. So, why should this mere woman also receive a salary for her work? And so Emmy taught for seven years without any pay.

Gottingen University was known as a great center of Mathematics. In 1915, Professor David Hilbert, invited Emmy to become a member of his group there.

He recognized her brilliance. But she was only a woman and again, her lectures had to be listed under the name of a male faculty member. Once again, because she was a woman, the University refused to give her a stipend. It was not until 1923 that the University began to pay her.

Hilbert observed that there were problems with mathematically proving Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

And so, he initiated a correspondence between Emmy and Einstein.

Conservation of energy is a principle that states that energy is able to change forms, but it can never be destroyed. Thus, the total amount of energy is always constant. But Einstein’s theory did not seem to comply with this principle.

Emmy found the glitch in his equations.

With her skill at such complex mathematics, she proved that Einstein’s theory of general relativity did adhere to the conservation of energy.

Emmy showed that it is not energy alone that is conserved but the combination of energy and momentum. From Discovery online: “She resolved the issue head-on, showing that energy may not be conserved “locally” — that is, in an arbitrarily small patch of space — but everything works out when the space is sufficiently large.” Voila!

And then came 1933. Hitler was in power. Auguste Dick writes in his book, “Emmy Noether” that she received a notice from the Prussian Ministry for Sciences, Art, and Public education, “On the basis of paragraph 3 of the Civil Service Code of 7 April 1933, I hereby withdraw from you the right to teach at the University of Gottingen.”

For a while, she taught students in her apartment, finally finding a welcoming home in the United States at Bryn Mawr College.

Einstein wrote a letter to the New York Times which was reprinted in the Washington Post in 2015, “…in the judgment of the most competent living mathematicians, Fraulein Noether was the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE FROM GALAHAD, THE SIBERIAN HUSKY WHO IS DOCTOR CURMUDGEON’S EDITOR AND COUSIN:”IN GENERAL RELATIVITY, GRAVITY IS NOT SOME INVISIBLE FORCE THAT PULLS OBJECTS TO EACH OTHER, THE MORE MASS THAT SOMETHING HAS, THE MORE IT WARPS THE SURROUNDING SPACE. A NEW BOOK HAS COME OUT ABOUT HER, CALLED “EINSTEIN’S TUTOR”BY PHILLIPS AND IT’S ON MY READING LIST)

Dr. Curmudgeon suggests “Bitter Medicine”, Dr. Eugene Eisman’s story of his experiences–from the humorous to the intense—as a young army doctor serving in the Vietnam War.
Bitter Medicine by Eugene H. Eisman, M.D. –on Amazon

Doctor Curmudgeon® is Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D., a physician-satirist. This column originally appeared on SERMO, the leading global social network for doctors.
SERMO www.sermo.com

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