4 ms·
But how? Literally, everyone in the field knows her. If you’re talking about the general public, then she is under appreciated but so is pretty much every othe
by wannabedev22 4y ago
But how? Literally, everyone in the field knows her.
If you’re talking about the general public, then she is under appreciated but so is pretty much every other physicist too.
- psychphysic 4y agoI'd suggest this meets the definition of hiding in plain sight. The general public is interested in female contributions to science on the whole. And they would appreciate knowing about Noether. And the physics community by an large does know her. But that information has not escaped the relatively esoteric setting of physics education. On top of that I'd be curious how many of those who know of the symmetry conservation link, know of it as Noether's theorem and how many know Noether was a woman. I bet not much! Just speculation. Again that would be hiding in plain sight in my book.
- i-use-nixos-btw 4y agoNGL when learning Noether’s theorem I thought Emmy was short for something like Emiliano. It wasn’t until long afterwards that I found out that she was a she, and the struggles she had along the way because of that. At the time I wouldn’t have cared anyway. I was bombarded with so many names of people through equations, experiments, etc that I didn’t care if they were a man, woman, or carrier pigeon. I just cared what the result meant and how I could use it. It’s only after the fact, long after I left academia, that I started to see these people as humans with real lives and stories.
- syzarian 4y agoWhat’s interesting about this discussion is that she had far more results in mathematics than physics. She was a pioneer in commutative algebra and discovered a lot of fundamental theorems and concepts in commutative algebra.
- whatshisface 4y agoBut sadly mathematicians are even less recognized. It is way easier to explain scientific discoveries than it is to explain mathematical discoveries.
- zarzavat 4y agoIndeed, people in this thread are way overestimating how many average people even know who Euler is. It’s OK if mathematicians are obscure in the general population. That’s part of the deal when you become a mathematician. I don’t know many footballers either. I would much rather the general public filled their heads with basic mathematical concepts, rather than the names of mathematicians. As Feynman said (paraphrasing), knowing the name of something is rather useless if you don’t know anything else about it.
- impossiblefork 4y agoOf course, but normal people-- highschoolers, physics teachers in countries where those don't have physics degrees, etc.