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Emmy Noether and her Contributions to Commutative Algebra

Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery

Abstract: It is difficult to overstate the effect that Emmy Noether's life has had on the field of commutative algebra. One cannot teach a course on the subject without repeatedly uttering her name, and the way that the subject is thought of is in large part thanks to her perspective. While she was well respected by her collaborators, she of course faced challenges because of her sex, such as being unable to get a paid position in Germany, as well as facing the usual sexism which was rampant during the 19th and early 20th century. In this talk I hope to highlight and explain the mathematics she is known for and how it fits into modern mathematics, while simultaneously giving historical context to give a more complete picture of who she was as both a jewish woman and as a mathematician. I will pay particular attention to her developments in the theory of modules and central simple algebras. Unfortunately, there will not be time to go into detail about her work in physics, but to ignore it would give a wildly incomplete picture of her life, so I will briefly explain her work in that area as well. <br/><br/> About the speaker: Dr. Etroposki received her PhD from Emory University in 2016 and is currently in the second year of her postdoc position at Rice University. Her research area is arithmetic geometry, and her main focus is the study of rational points on higher genus curves. She has a particular interest in the arithmetic of modular curves, whose rational points encode information about elliptic curves in a “uniform” sense.

Mathematics; History and biography; Mathematics education

video/mp4

Author affiliation: Rice University

2018-09-14

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/67179

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/