Mathematician - Women in Mathematics

Women in Mathematics

See also: List of female mathematicians

While the majority of mathematicians are male, there have been some demographic changes since World War II. Some prominent female mathematicians are Hypatia of Alexandria (ca. 400 AD), Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718–1799), Emmy Noether (1882–1935), Sophie Germain (1776–1831), Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891), Alicia Boole Stott (1860–1940), Rózsa Péter (1905–1977), Julia Robinson (1919–1985), Olga Taussky-Todd (1906–1995), Émilie du Châtelet (1706–1749), Mary Cartwright (1900–1998), Olga Ladyzhenskaya (1922–2004), and Olga Oleinik (1925–2001).

The Association for Women in Mathematics is a professional society whose purpose is "to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity and the equal treatment of women and girls in the mathematical sciences." The American Mathematical Society and other mathematical societies offer several prizes aimed at increasing the representation of women and minorities in the future of mathematics.

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Famous quotes containing the words women and/or mathematics:

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    Mathematics alone make us feel the limits of our intelligence. For we can always suppose in the case of an experiment that it is inexplicable because we don’t happen to have all the data. In mathematics we have all the data ... and yet we don’t understand. We always come back to the contemplation of our human wretchedness. What force is in relation to our will, the impenetrable opacity of mathematics is in relation to our intelligence.
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