Emmy Noether blazed a trail in math and physics decades before women in those fields were debating the lingering sexism in the field.

Albert Einstein once called her a “creative mathematical genius” but she was barred from studying in most universities in her native Germany at the turn of the 20th century. She earned a doctorate in mathematics in 1907 but rarely lectured under her own name.

But despite labouring in relative obscurity (she was well-respected within her field but unknown without at the time of her death in 1935 at the age of just 53), she left the footprint of a giant on the worlds of math and physics. Her most foundational theory, which unified many others, relates to the notion that differentiable systems have corresponding conservational laws. It’s the basic notion that energy is never lost it’s transferred, but it’s applied throughout physics.

“Her theorem is really rather simple to summarize, but the conceptual link it describes really does underlie the way we do modern fundamental physics,” said Ruth Gregory, a professor of physics at Durham University in Australia. Gregory will be giving a keynote lecture Monday at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo as part of its Convergence Conference, its first ever alumni reunion.

The event will also celebrate the 100th anniversary of the theory of relativity this year, and Gregory will deliver the first of two public lectures. The first will be on Noether, and her impact, the second on Einstein and his theory that’s so famous most middle-schoolers could name it, if not describe it.

But if Noether influenced Einstein, why is he a household name and she’s not?

Is it because women’s place in the so-called STEM fields — science, technology and math — is still so tenuous in some places? Nobel-prize winning scientist Tim Hunt said recently that labs should be segregated because female scientists are more emotional and too physically distracting, starting a debate that’s raging far outside those labs in question. But what do actual women in STEM, the women gathering this week in Waterloo to discuss the future of physics, have to say about the subject?

Gregory, when asked why Noether isn’t as well known, said it might be more about her personality than her gender.

“It is easy to say ‘because she is a woman,’ and to some extent that is true, but perhaps not in the simplistic way ‘women never get credit’ that one might think,” Gregory said. “I think she was very pragmatic, and enjoyed what she did. She did not feel the need to ‘mark her territory’ (the way a ‘man’ might) thus did not make a big deal about making sure she got recognition. You still see this today, with people feeling they need to shout and mark territory.”

She said Hunt’s comments are “symptomatic of the usual concern old farts have about mixing sexes, and yes, there are consequences” but perhaps the key to getting and attracting more girls to the field, is to talk more about their foremothers:

“I think stories like Noether’s, or of other women in physics … will help. Sometimes all a girl needs is to see it can be done by someone “normal” like her.”

Here are what three other leading women in physics had to say about Hunt, sexism in STEM and how to get the next generation of girls into science:

Natalia Toro at Perimeter Institute researcher said, “The only good thing I can say about Tim Hunt’s comments is that they certainly are uncommon in my experience (which doesn’t make them any less problematic for those who do experience them).

While Hunt’s comments are an extreme, there are many subtler but still discouraging factors that affect almost all girls and women in science: things like stereotypes that may discourage them from pursuing interests in STEM in the first place; implicit bias (and, less often, overt sexism) in hiring; a certain amount of “bro culture” that keeps reminding women we’re an often-invisible minority; and lack of support in navigating work/life balance (a serious issue for men too!). I think all of these things are improving, but they should be improving faster… I also think ethnic/racial minorities and LGBT scientists face similar challenges, which are rarely discussed simply because these communities are so extremely underrepresented!”

Kelly Foyle, a physics professor at McMaster University:
“Tim Hunt’s comments are an obvious reminder that there are still a lot of barriers for women in STEM… but I don’t think that focusing exclusively on comments like this will do much for breaking down barriers. I think that most women in STEM face barriers due to unconscious bias, which I will add is committed by both women and men against women, and structural barriers (i.e. an academic science career requires long work hours and moving to new locations frequently, which is not always compatible with spousal careers and children). These two issues are more subtle than the blatant sexism expressed by Tim Hunt, but are more nefarious in some sense because they are difficult to address and quite widespread.”

Sonali Mohapatra, a student at the Perimeter Institute:
“I think these kind of comments spur and motivate more people with similar mindsets to join the bandwagon and make the workplace non‐conducive for women even more. Though I have been mostly

lucky to have worked in labs and with supervisors where I have not faced this particular kind of comments, I have unfortunately seen many female colleagues fall prey to this. Moreover, I have personally faced other kinds of discrimination in STEM, especially in Physics where there is a skewed
gender ratio with a much smaller female population. This saps one’s courage and is highly detrimental, and some even decide to change or just give up as a physicist. Moreover this starts a chain reaction. The less the number of female physicists, the less motivation there is for future generations of future physicists to be brave enough to enter the fray. Non‐conducive work environments in physics lead to fewer female physicists, which leads to the illusion and the bias that physics is a man’s domain.”

— Ruth Gregory’s public lecture about Emmy Noether with Peter Olver will be livestreamed from the NationalPost.com at 8 p.m. on Monday evening.