How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics
Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A century later, her insights continue to shape physics. The post How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
In the fall of 1915, the foundations of physics began to crack. Einstein’s new theory of gravity seemed to imply that it should be possible to create and destroy energy, a result that threatened to upend two centuries of thinking in physics. Einstein’s theory, called general relativity, radically transformed the meaning of space and time. Rather than being fixed backdrops to the events of the…
