Grete Hermann | |
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Grete Hermann
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Born |
Bremen |
March 2, 1901
Died | April 15, 1984 Bremen |
(aged 83)
Nationality | German |
Education | Göttingen under Emmy Noether; Ph.D. in 1926. |
Occupation | Mathematician and philosopher |
Employer | Assistant for Leonard Nelson; professor for philosophy and physics at the |
Grete (Henry-)Hermann (March 2, 1901 – April 15, 1984) was a German mathematician and philosopher noted for her work in mathematics, physics, philosophy and education. She is noted for her early philosophical work on the foundations of quantum mechanics, and is now known most of all for an early, but long-ignored refutation of a no-hidden-variable theorem by John von Neumann. The disputed theorem and the fact that Hermann's critique of this theorem remained nearly unknown for decades are considered to have had a strong influence on the development of quantum mechanics.
Hermann studied mathematics at Göttingen under Emmy Noether, where she achieved her Ph.D. in 1926. Her doctoral thesis, "Die Frage der endlich vielen Schritte in der Theorie der Polynomideale" (in English "The Question of Finitely Many Steps in Polynomial Ideal Theory"), published in Mathematische Annalen, is the foundational paper for computer algebra. It first established the existence of algorithms (including complexity bounds) for many of the basic problems of abstract algebra, such as ideal membership for polynomial rings. Hermann's algorithm for primary decomposition is still in contemporary use.
From 1925 to 1927, Hermann worked as assistant for Leonard Nelson Together with Minna Specht, she posthumously published Nelson's work System der philosophischen Ethik und Pädagogik, while continuing her own research.