Many times women in math do not receive the credit they deserve. It seems the focus is on the males and all of their accomplishments. I wanted to take a minute to explore the contributions of five female mathematicians and their accomplishments in the field of math. We will look at Hypatia, Agnesi, Germain, Kovalevskaya, and Noether.
1. Hypatia of Alexandria (370-415)
Hypatia lived in Egypt and was one of the first women to help with the development of mathematics. She got her interest in math from her father Theon who was a mathematician and a philosopher. She taught math and philosophy at a Platonist school in Egypt with a scientific emphasis. Through her teaching, she became a symbol of learning and science which was against the Christians beliefs. Eventually Christians killed her because they were threatened by her knowledge. We do not have any evidence of her own mathematics, however, she helped her father write Ptolemy's Almagest and a new version of Euclid's Elements. She also wrote commentaries on Diophantus's Arithmetica, Apollonius's Conics, and Ptolemy's astronomical works.
2. Maria Agnesi (1718-1799)
Agnesi lived in Italy and her father hired talented tutors to help her with languages and philosophy. Her father liked to show off her intelligence in front of other people. At one point in her life, she wanted to become a nun, but her father would not allow it. She ended up staying with her father instead of pursuing her dreams to become a nun. She decided to study religious books and mathematics on her own. Ramiro Rampinelli was a monk who helped her better understand mathematics. She wrote a commentary on one of de L'Hopital's works. She wrote Instituzioni analitiche which gives illustrations of calculus results and theorems. Later, she dedicated her life to working with charities and the poor.
3. Sophie Germain (1776-1831)
Germain was a French mathematician. She first became interested in Mathematics when she learned about Archimedes. To pursue her interest she studied Newton and Euler. Lagrange read some of her work and decided to become her mathematics counselor even when he found out she was a woman. She had many correspondences with well known mathematicians like Legendre and Gauss on their works. Many times she disguised her self as a man with the name M. LeBlanc so she wouldn't be overlooked. However, once they found out she was a woman, they praised her work even more than they originally had. She contributed to Fermant's Last Theorem, Germain's Theorem, and she tried to formulate a theory on elastic surfaces. She spent the rest of her life studying mathematics.
4. Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850-1891)
Kovalevskaya was born in Russia. She became interested in mathematics when her uncle, Pyotr Vasilievich Krukovsky, spoke to her
about it. She had wallpaper covering differential and integral analysis in her
bedroom which introduced her to calculus. However, she had a tutor that first
formally taught her about the subject. These lessons stopped when her father
did not want her to continue her studies so she secretly studied physics and
algebra on her own. She later unofficially attended a university where women
were not allowed. She wrote papers about Partial differential equation, Abelian
integrals, and Saturn's Rings. Her gender caused serious problems when she
was pursuing a career at a university. The only job she could
find as a women was for elementary education. Eventually she held a chair at a
European university which was a huge accomplishment because only two other
females had done this before. She continued studying math, writing articles,
and even won a few prizes for her accomplishments in mathematics.
5. Emmy Noether (1882-1935)
Emmy Noether was born in Germany and her father was a mathematician. She first got her certification to be a teacher, but later realized she wanted to attend a university to unofficially study mathematics since women were not allowed. In 1904 she was allowed to officially study mathematics at a university. One topic she focused on was the theory of invariants for the forms of n variables. Noether did research on her own and started publishing her work which gave her a good reputation. She has a theorem named after herself for theoretical physics. However, she also spent much time working on invariant theory and ideal theory as well which helped produce abstract theory. In 1933, she came to the United States as a professor at Bryn Mawr College.
5. Emmy Noether (1882-1935)
I think it is important for everyone to understand that men and women are equally capable of contributing to mathematics. I think when I become a middle school math teacher, I will teach my students about the history of mathematics. I may start my lessons introducing famous mathematicians including both males and females. I would like my students to see that math is not a subject that boys are better at. Hopefully showing famous female mathematicians will help the girls in my class see that they could be mathematicians too.
Sources
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/BiogIndex.html
