# Why has nobody heard of Emmy Noether? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 11, 2026, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-nobody-heard-of-emmy-noether/1028384 "2026-03-11T23:00:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2026, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-nobody-heard-of-emmy-noether/1028384/41 "2026-03-15T16:15:30Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > If you pay me a dump truck full of money, I will be glad to polish that screenplay in which a plucky Emmy Noether saves the world by assembling a team to foil the dread cultists of Yog-Sothoth. Only she can ultimately uphold the integrity of space-time itself. I’d buy that DVD, and put it on the shelf right next to _Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter_ ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2026, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-nobody-heard-of-emmy-noether/1028384/42 "2026-03-15T18:10:58Z")
Ooh, one of my favorite movies. I love those documentaries that detail little known facts about famous people. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2026, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-nobody-heard-of-emmy-noether/1028384/43 "2026-03-15T23:00:52Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I mean, I’ve got a computer science degree and something like 18 credit hours of collegiate level math courses, and looking at the wiki page for Noether, that stuff she worked on is well beyond anything we even came close to covering in school. I believe you, but I’m surprised. The last time I taught (undergraduate) Abstract Algebra, a couple of years ago, [Noether’s Isomorphism Theorems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphism_theorems) were central to much of what we did and I think I drilled her name into my students’ heads pretty thoroughly. These are results you need to know if you’re going to do anything with groups or rings. This is junior or senior level stuff for math majors in my school, but I could see other majors not getting to it. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2026, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-nobody-heard-of-emmy-noether/1028384/44 "2026-03-16T00:46:21Z")
I am astonished to learn just now that those isomorphism theorems were Noether’s. In any case, there is no real depth to them and their proofs are trivial. The other things I mentioned above were much deeper. And I taught modern algebra many times in my career. ---
**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2026, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-nobody-heard-of-emmy-noether/1028384/45 "2026-03-16T01:17:46Z")
I think when I first learned them it wasn’t with anyone’s name associated to them, which may go to the point of this thread. But I wanted my students to know about Noether, so I quite deliberately attached her name. And no, they’re not deep, but they’re foundational and beginning algebra students need them drummed into their heads until they’re as second nature as they are to you and me. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2026, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-nobody-heard-of-emmy-noether/1028384/46 "2026-03-17T19:38:23Z")
Ours was a lot of calculus, then we had the choice of differential equations or linear algebra, and finally discrete and combinatorial mathematics. But yeah, it’s the sort of thing you have to be a math or maybe physics major to be exposed to Noether. In my field, it’s like wondering why people in the wider world don’t know who Claude Shannon is. His work underpins pretty much _everything_ technological we use these days, but his work was in information theory, and is foundational for stuff like cryptography and data compression, among many things. I figure every field of study has someone like this- someone whose work is deeply foundational, but who isn’t popularly known. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-nobody-heard-of-emmy-noether/1028384.md?page=2)