HackingTheUniverse

Born in Erlangen, Bavaria, Germany in 1882, Emmy Noether was a mathematician who laid the groundwork for the idea of symmetry in mathematics and physics. She studied the works of Hilbert, Klein and Minkowski and was peer with Hermann Weyl.

Noether’s theorem - in 1915, she proved a relationship between symmetries in physics and conservations principles. Her work in invariant theory helped form concepts of the general theory of relativity.

Albert Einstein wrote:

In the judgment of the most competent living mathematicians, Fräulein Noether was the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began. In the realm of algebra, in which the most gifted mathematicians have been busy for centuries, she discovered methods which have proved of enormous importance in the development of the present-day younger generation of mathematicians.

PREREQUISITES:
group theory
Galois
Lie groups
Hilbert
Klein
Minkowski

SUBSEQUENT:
quantum field theory
calculus of variations
standard model
supersymmetry