Eric Temple Bell, The Development of Mathematics (1940)

The third great epoch in the extension of arithmetic is that of the twentieth century after 1910. To anticipate, the introduction of general methods into linear algebra, beginning in the first decade of the twentieth century, prepared that vast field of mathematics, first opened up by Hamilton and Grassman in the 1840s, for partial arithmetization in the second and third decades of the century. In 1910, E. Steinitz... proceeding from, and partly generalizing, Kronecker's theory (1881) of "algebraic magnitudes," made a fundamental contribution to the modern theory of (commutative) fields. His work was one of the strongest impulses to the abstract algebra of the 1920s and 1930s, with its accompanying generalized arithmetic. The outstanding figure in the later phase of this development is usually considered to be Emmy Noether... who, with her numerous pupils, laid down the broad foundations of the modern abstract theory of ideals, also a great deal more in the domain of modern algebra. The application of this work to the 'integers' of linear associative algebras affords the ultimate extension up to 1940 of common arithmetic.

— Eric Temple Bell

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The third great epoch in the extension of arithmetic is that of the twentieth century after 1910. To anticipate, the introduction of general methods into linear algebra, beginning in the first decade of the twentieth century, prepared that vast field of mathematics, first opened up by Hamilton and Grassman in the 1840s, for partial arithmetization in the second and third decades of the century. In 1910, E. Steinitz... proceeding from, and partly generalizing, Kronecker's theory (1881) of "algebraic magnitudes," made a fundamental contribution to the modern theory of (commutative) fields. His work was one of the strongest impulses to the abstract algebra of the 1920s and 1930s, with its accompanying generalized arithmetic. The outstanding figure in the later phase of this development is usually considered to be Emmy Noether... who, with her numerous pupils, laid down the broad foundations of the modern abstract theory of ideals, also a great deal more in the domain of modern algebra. The application of this work to the 'integers' of linear associative algebras affords the ultimate extension up to 1940 of common arithmetic." in the context of "Eric Temple Bell, The Development of Mathematics (1940)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Emmy Noether

About Emmy Noether

Amalie Emmy Noether (March 23, 1882 – April 14, 1935) was a German mathematician known for her landmark contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics.