Talk:Emmy Noether

In 1935, Hermann Weyl subnitted an obituary to the New York Times, which they refused to print on the grounds that nobody had ever heard of him. There is an apocryphal story that Albert Einstein's "In the judgment of the most competent living mathematicians," was a slap at the NYT for being ignorant of Weyl's prominence. If there is an online copy og Weyl's obituary of Emma, I believe that it would be appropriate to cite it and quote a couple of paragraphs. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 10:29, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Page 263 of Rowe, 2021 says

There is another reason to entertain these speculations, and this concerns the obituary article that appeared in the New York Times on May 5, 1935, signed by Einstein. An oft-repeated story about this piece is that the author was actually Hermann Weyl, but since the journalists who handled these matters had never heard of him, they asked for something from his super-famous IAS colleague. Such stories are usually difficult to refute, and something like this may well have happened. But in this particular instance, surviving textual evidence makes clear that Einstein wrote the obituary in question, or to be more precise, he drafted a German text (Fig. 9.2), which served as the basis for the published obituary. Since it appeared rather late, some three weeks after Noether’s death, it seems entirely plausible that Weyl might have submitted an obituary to the New York Times, only to have it rejected.

Sgubaldo (talk) 17:15, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

What is the rationale for having the long section named "Background on abstract algebra and begriffliche Mathematik (conceptual mathematics)"? I do not understand why the overview of abstract algebra is necessary in this article.

The bullet points defining groups and rings seem particularly silly, since one can get better information about groups or rings by clicking the link to the corresponding article and reading the first paragraph or so. Homogeneous Cow (talk) 04:31, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Because if you do not already have that background then the description of her contributions becomes unreadable, and we do not want to assume that reads who click a link to find out about something will ever come back from it. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:49, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

True: the more background you have, the easier this article is to read. But in my opinion, it is usually better to let the reader decide what background they'd like to read further about. From my perspective (as somebody who knows something about abstract algebra but little about Noether), the article is so cluttered and overlong as to be hard to read. I started reading it to learn about her---not to learn about what a group is. Because I am lazy (like most readers), I quickly gave up on reading the article, discouraged at sorting through the definitions, and came to the talk page to complain instead.

It's not like the excessive background material is just confined to one section, either; see, for example, the section on Galois theory. The first three paragraphs are generalities about Galois theory, and only the final, fourth paragraph says anything about Noether. Surely this inappropriate for an article supposedly about Noether?

Also, you talk about the reader not coming back after clicking on a link as if it's a bad thing. If they decide they'd rather read about group theory than about a mathematician, surely we have no reason to try to prevent that? Homogeneous Cow (talk) 19:53, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I see that somebody else has already made this same point on the featured article review page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_review#Emmy_Noether.

I still stand by what I said, but perhaps there is no point in discussing it here if it has already been discussed to death there. Homogeneous Cow (talk) 20:10, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Presumably, Noether did not marry (true?), but she have any romances? If not, the article should at least say so. It ends quite abruptly as it is. JingleJim (talk) 00:36, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Some bullet points, because this comment is weird on several levels:

• The article doesn't end abruptly at all; a 'Legacy' section is the de facto ideal way to end an article about a person, piece of media, etc.
• It's up to you to show that there's notable coverage of possible romances that could be used, not for others to go looking for it.
• Any possible romances would have no effect on the ending of the article, as they would fall into the 'Biography' section which ends with her death (the, again, de facto ideal way to end that kind of section). TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 02:48, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

JingleJim makes an obvious point and it's uncivil to dismiss it as "weird". Spicemix (talk) 11:36, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

How is it obvious that a biographical article should include any romances when there's no evidence they (or their absence) is at all relevant to the article's subject's noteworthiness? Do you insist that's an obvious point about males in their articles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DocRuby (talk • contribs) 19:36, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

I was delighted to see Emmy Noether on the Main Page this morning, and I wanted to thank the contributors who brought the article into such fine form. Reading the FARC discussion, I was impressed by their good sense and devotion to maintaining high encyclopedic standards. Hats off to you all! It's an article we can all be proud of.

It also brought back many lovely memories of the wonderful collaboration that brought the article to FA-status in 2008, both with eminent mathematicians and prolific Wikipedians, esp. Scartol and the much-missed Awadewit. Willow (talk) 05:04, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

I have long believed^[a] that Emmy deserves more recognition from the general public, and share your gratitude for her appearance on the main page.

I noticed that this talk page shows a project for female scientists but not for female mathematicians. If one exists, it should be added, as her work on abstract algebra was her crowning glory, and it is hard to overstate its importance in the field. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chatul (talk • contribs) 11:35, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, thanks to everybody who has helped maintain this article over the years. I didn't even see our friend Noether on the front page, so disconnected am I (alas) from Wikipedia these days. I share WillowW's salute of everybody involved, and I thank her for all her help in the original FA drive.

Side note: Every time I spill food on myself, especially in the classroom, I declare "I am Emmy Noether!" Scartol • Tok 20:40, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't see her on the page now - and most of the content is "transcluded" so I can't find it in the pimary page history. Where was it on the page? --John (User:Jwy/talk) 16:07, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

In the lead it says "she lectured and performed research". Does one "perform" research? I would think one would conduct research, or perhaps engage in research. RoySmith (talk) 22:11, 16 June 2025 (UTC)