The Three Greatest Women Mathematicians

Prepared by: Ma. Irene G. Gonzales

HYPATIA

• Born in 370 A.D in Alexandria, Egypt

• Daughter of Theon

• Her father acted as her tutor and teacher in the field of arts, literature, science, and philosophy.

• She was also trained in speech by her father Theon.

HYPATIA

• Hypatia attended a school where she established her fame as a mathematician.

• She lectured on Diophantus’ Artithmetica.

o Techniques Diophantus had developed

o Solutions to his indeterminate problems

o Symbolism he devised

HYPATIA

• She wrote several treaties.

• She also wrote commentaries on “The Conics of Apollonius” and “Almagest.”

• Her significant contribution in mathematics paved the way to consistent research and development within the fields of mathematics and natural science.

Sofia Kovalevskaya

• First notable Russian female mathematician

• Was appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe

• Exposed to mathematics at an early age from the wallpapers of her room

Sofia Kovalevskaya

• Sofia formally studied mathematics under her tutor, Joseph Ignatevich Malevich.

• Women were not allowed to attend at the universities in Russia.

• At the age of 18, Sofia entered into a marriage of convenience to Vladimir Kovalevskaya in order to go to Germany.

Sofia Kovalevskaya

• In 1870, she went to Berlin, hoping to study with Karl Weierstrass at the University of Berlin.

• However, Weierstrass sent her away with a set of problems so challenging that he never expected to see her again.

• Weierstrass claimed that she had "the gift of intuitive genius."

Sofia Kovalevskaya

• In 1874, Sofia had completed three papers on partial differential equations, Abelianintegrals and Saturn's rings.

• In 1884 Sofia was appointed to a five year extraordinary professorship in Stockholm.

• (1888) Prix Bordin Award for her paper, On the Rotation of a Solid Body About a Fixed Point.

Greatest Contributions

• Differential equations

• Analysis

• Mechanics

• Elliptic integrals

• Dynamics of Saturn’s rings

Amalie Emmy Noether

• a German Mathematician

• She went to a general "finishing school.”

• Pursued a university education in mathematics.

• She entered the University of Göttingen in 1903.

• She received her mathematics Ph.D. in 1907.

Emmy Noether

Mathematical Institute of Erlangen1908-1915

Collaborated with Ernst Otto Fischer

They worked on theoretical algebra.

Emmy Noether

Worked with the prominent mathematicians

Hermann Minkowski Felix Klein David Hilbert

Emmy Noether

Mathematical Institute in Göttingen

Klein and Hilbert

Einstein's general relativity theory

Emmy Noether

• In 1918, she proved two theorems .

• She could not join the faculty at GöttingenUniversity because of her gender.

• Hilbert and Albert Einstein interceded for her.

• In 1922 she became an "associate professor without tenure."

• During the 1920’s, Noether did foundational work on abstract algebra.

Emmy Noether

• Her mathematics would be very useful for physicists and crystallographers, but it was controversial then.

• Noether's conceptual approach to algebra led to a body of principles unifying algebra, geometry, linear algebra, topology, and logic.

Emmy Noether

• In 1928-29 she was a visiting professor at the University of Moscow. In 1930, she taught at Frankfurt.

• The International Mathematical Congress in Zurich asked her to give a plenary lecture in 1932, and in the same year she was awarded the prestigious Ackermann-TeubnerMemorial Prize in mathematics.

Contributions

• abstract algebra

• theoretical physics.

• foundation of the theories of rings,

fields, and algebras

• differential invariants in the calculus of

variations, Noether’s theorem

Contributions

• theory of ideals in commutative rings into a potent tool with comprehensive applications

• noncommutative algebras

• hypercomplex numbers

• united the representation theory of groups with the theory of modules