Emmy’s Theorem

Emmys teorem – Emmy’s Theorem

By Julia Ravanis

EMMY NOETHER WAS one of the most prominent mathematicians of the 20th century. Her most important theorems helped turn around a worldview that had been true since the days of Newton. Today she is largely forgotten. This is a book about her life, her legacy and the dream of a life beyond the limitations of the body.

AS A JEWISH woman born in Germany in 1882, Emmy Noether was repeatedly excluded from the most important rooms of mathematics. Expected to devote herself only to mundane things, she nevertheless dedicated her life to mathematical abstraction.

WHILE STRUGGLING TO get into the University of Göttingen, she worked frantically on a theorem that explains what it means to not be anchored in place or time. Maybe everything is connected?

SCIENCE HISTORIAN AND physicist Julia Ravanis examines Emmy’s Theorem for what shapes our ideas and makes us who we are. The theorem itself guides the story of what gives us the energy to get somewhere, how we choose direction and maintain balance in life. About the places and times that we can never fully free ourselves from.