1. Kasi Whitaker, Momo Lewis, and Gabriella Anson
Women in Mathematics
Kasi Whitaker, Momo Lewis, and Gabriella Anson

2. Hypatia of Alexandria

3. Hypatia Background: Lived in Alexandria, Greece
Her birthdate is uncertain, but she died around 415
At the time of her death she was the greatest mathematician then living in the Greco-Roman world
Her father Theon was a famous mathematician and teacher
Raised Hypatia as an academic
Evidence that she surpassed him at a very young age
She was a respected teacher of math, astronomy, and philosophy
Neoplatonist philosophy
Synesius, student, philosopher, became Christian bishop
Known to have been beautiful, there are stories of her fighting off suitors
She is most famous for her death
killed by Christians for preaching philosophy
tortured and burned

4. Hypatia Contribution: Commented on:
Apollonius’ Conics - text has been lost
Ptolemy’s Almagest - “in recension to my philosopher-daughter Hypatia”
Diophantus’ Arithmetic - books 1-6 exist due to her commentary
added two “student exercises”
worked on algebra and conic sections
astrolabe for ship navigation
hydroscope for measuring the density of fluids
1:27-3:15

5. Florence Nightingale

6. Florence Nightingale Background: May 12, 1820 - August 13, 1910
Nursing and health sanitation reform
Est. first scientifically based nursing school, The Nightingale School of Nursing
Unusual for Victorian women to have professional careers
Her father William Nightingale believed women should be educated
Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1858
Honorary Member of the American Statistical Association in 1874
feminist

7. Florence Nightingale Contribution:
Used statistical analysis to plot incidence of needless deaths in the Crimean war due to unsanitary conditions
developed the polar-area diagram
Innovated in area of descriptive statistics
Promoted the idea that social phenomena could be measured
Calculated “the average speed of transport by sledge” and “the time required to transport the sick over the immense distances of Canada”

8. Emmy Noether

9. Emmy Noether Background:
Born in Germany on March 23, 1882, died April 14, 1935
Her father and brother were also mathematicians
Focused on languages in early school
University of Erlagen let her audit math classes for 2 years
eventually became a doctoral student
Went on to become a professor of mathematics, helping her sick father
was never paid until she went to work with Felix Klein and David Hilbert on furthering one of Einstein’s theories
ended her life teaching at Bryn Mawr College with women colleagues

10. Emmy Noether Contribution:
worked on theoretical algebra as well as abstract algebra
focused on group theory, number theory, and ring theory
her way of doing algebra led to the principles uniting algebra, geometry, topology, and logic
proved two theorems from physics
“Noether’s Theorem”
0-38 secs on vid

11. Marie-Sophie Germain

12. Marie-Sophie Germain Background:
At age 13, revolution struck in France. A true Revolutionary!
Born: April 1, 1776 in Paris, France
Died: July 27, 1831 In Paris, France
Mother: Marie- Madeline Germain
Father: Ambroise-Francois was a wealthy silk merchant according to many; but to a few he was recognized as being a goldsmith
Younger sister: Angélique-Ambroise
Older Sister: Marie-Madeline
Ecole Polytechnique-It was at the school that she met Lagrange, who at the time was a teacher there. He would later become her mentor and supporter when he realized her true brilliance in mathematics.
Her early interest in Number Theory was inspired by Adrien-Marie Legendré and her 1789 work titled, Essai Sur la Théorie des Numbres,
She was also inspired by the works of Friedrich Gauss.

13. Marie-Sophie Germain Contributions:
Sent in a memoir to the French Academy of Sciences which gave a mathematical explanation of vibrating plates. Her work treated vibrations of not only curved planes, but also flat surfaces as well. She won a prize for this contest in 1816.
Her explanation would result in the discovery of laws of equilibrium and movements of solids in elasticity.
Made generalizations about elasticity, however unfortunately she was unable to contribute real progress because of her gender.
Her correspondence with Legrende would lead to her contribution and interest in Number Theory. He saw her work as “ingenious”.
Her work on Fermat’s Last Theorem was regarded as crucial to many findings although her methods held some flaws.
A Sophie Germain prime is a prime p such that 2p + 1 is also prime.
A Germain curvature (also known as mean curvature) is (K1 + K2)/2 when K1 and K2 are the maximum and minimum values of the normal curvature.

14. Ada Lovelace

15. Ada Lovelace Background: Birth: December 10, 1815 In London, England
Death: November 17, 1852
Mother: Lady Anne Isabella Milbanke Byron. She and her husband were divorced shortly after Ada’s birth.
Father: Lord George Gordon Byron. Was a Romantic Poet. He Died in Greece before his daughter could meet him. She was only 8 years old.
In her early childhood, her mother had her tutored in difficult subjects such as mathematics and theatre in order to prevent her from adopting the sad mood of her poetic father.
Ada would be introduced and instructed by the likes of William Frend (social reformer at the time), the family doctor, William King and Mary Somerville (both a mathematician and Astronomer) who was also one of the first women to be accepted into the Royal Astronomical Society.

16. Ada LoveLace Contributions:
At the age of 17, she would meet Charles Babbage who was a brilliant mathematician and inventor.
He would mentor her through her studies of advanced mathematics.
He invented the difference engine, meant to compute difficult calculations, but also thought about creating an analytical engine.
His idea was summarized by the Italian Luigi Federico Menebrea, however in French.
Ada would help translate it and also added a few of her own ideas.
She added ways for the engine to analyze symbols and numbers, which is known as looping as evident in today’s computer programmings.
She became known as the First Computer Programmer.

17. Thank you!