mathematical studies at the age of 20, and eventually became a
mathematics tutor. Although nursing was considered a
disreputable career, she enrolled at the Institute of St. Vincent
de Paul in Egypt in 1850 because she felt it was her calling
from God to do so. In 1854 she went to work in the British
military hospital in Constantinople, Turkey. The conditions she
encountered prompted her to start collecting statistical data on
the mortality rate of soldiers, and she calculated that improved
sanitation would reduce the number of deaths. Nightingale’s
work resulted in a reduction of the mortality rate from 60
percent to just over 2 percent in a six-month period. She
developed a graph of her data, called the Polar Area Diagram,
and further used the information to compute that the British
army would be completely wiped out by disease given the
then-current rate of soldier deaths. Her mathematics gave her
the ability to push for reform of hospital conditions, as well as
institute training for nurses, which ultimately changed the
reputation of the profession. For her work, she received many
honors, including election as the first woman Fellow of the
Royal Statistical Society and as an honorary member of the
American Statistical Association.Noether, Amalie (Emmy) (1882–1935) A German mathematician
touted by Einstein as “the most significant creative
mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher
education of women began.” He placed her amongst the most
gifted mathematicians ever in the field of algebra. Her major
contributions to the sciences include the development of group
theory in physics, as well as her book Idealtheorie in
Ringbereichen,which dealt with ring theory. She made
discoveries in theoretical physics, among them Noether’s
Theorem, which was praised by Einstein and ultimately aided
him in the development of the theory of relativity. Despite her
genius, she spent most of her life working in mathematics
unpaid because of her gender. With the onset of Nazi power in
Germany in 1933, she moved to Bryn Mawr College in the
U.S., and taught there until her death.
Oresme, Nicholas (Nichole d’Oresme, Nicholas Oresmus)
(1323–82) French mathematician who invented COORDINATE
geometry some 200 years before the birth of RENÉ DESCARTES,
Noether – Oresme BIOGRAPHIES
Noether – Oresme BIOGRAPHIES