Fritz Noether

Fritz Alexander Ernst Noether (7 October 1884 – 10 September 1941) was a famous German mathematician who emigrated from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union. He was later executed by the Stalinist NKVD.[2]

Fritz Noether
Born(1884-10-07)7 October 1884
Erlangen, German Empire
Died10 September 1941(1941-09-10) (aged 56)
Oryol, Russian SFSR
Alma materUniversity of Munich
Spouse(s)Regine (died 1935)[1]
ChildrenGottfried, Hermann[1]
Scientific career
ThesisÜber rollende Bewegung einer Kugel auf Rotationsflächen (1909)
Doctoral advisorAurel Voss
Doctoral studentsHelmut Heinrich
Left to right: Herrmann, Fritz, and Regine Noether, Lotte and Gottfried Heisig; c. 1930–1931 in the Krkonoše.

Biography

Fritz Noether's father Max Noether was a mathematician and professor in Erlangen. The notable mathematician Emmy Noether was his elder sister. He had two sons, Herman D. Noether and Gottfried E. Noether. His eldest son Herman was a chemist. Gottfried was an American statistician and educator, and wrote a brief biography of his father.

Fritz Noether was also an able mathematician. Not allowed to work in Nazi Germany for being a Jew, he moved to the Soviet Union, where he was appointed to a professorship at the Tomsk State University.

In November 1937, during the Great Purge, he was arrested at his home in Tomsk by the NKVD. On 23 October 1938, Noether was sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment on charges of espionage and sabotage. He served time in different prisons. On 8 September 1941 the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court sentenced Professor F. Noether to death on the accusation of "anti-Soviet propaganda". He was shot in Orel (Oryol) on 10 September 1941. His burial place is unknown, but there is a memorial plaque in the Gengenbach Cemetery, Germany, at the site of his wife's grave.

On 22 Dec 1988, the Plenum of the USSR Supreme Court ruled that Professor Fritz M. Noether had been convicted on groundless charges and voided his sentence, thus fully rehabilitating him.

See also

References
  1. Tollmien, Dr. Cordula (13 June 2006) [1990]. "Lebensdaten" [Lifetime dates]. Lebensläufe Emmy Noethers (in German). Mathematischen Institut der Universität Göttingen.
  2. Misha, Shifman (2017-01-16). Standing Together In Troubled Times: Unpublished Letters Of Pauli, Einstein, Franck And Others. World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-320-103-3.

Media related to Fritz Noether (mathematician) at Wikimedia Commons


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.