I learnt Emmy Noether’s Theorem at uni - Monika Herceg

Therefore I may suppose

that were both sinewy female flesh

Our features tell us

every day was a lonely Wednesday

as symmetrical as the hemispheres of our mind 

Emmy, did maths put bread on the table those seven years

when men took from your mind

Without paying, with the excuse

that there were only numerical values in you,

An algebra too pedantic, worthless to the long-legged philosophers 

Today they’d lock you in a computer, label you artificial intelligence 

give you a coquettish name, Vanda or Irma,

let you use algorithms  

to calculate how many bombs to drop on each continent 

to eliminate the possibility of a nuclear war

I remember when they peeked under your theorem

in the classical mechanics class

thinking there was a moustachioed man underneath

Certainly not a woman’s pears 

stealing the road from the high heels again

Emmy, the world no longer fits into an equation

Some women believe that during hunting season it is permitted

to bring woman to the brink of extinction

It is then that I feel the cold symmetry of solitude

and I know, when you cried, your mother, too, 

stood in front of your room listening

never opening the door.

---

Monika Herceg (born 1990) Croatia

Translated by Mirza Purić

Source: Versopolis Poetry

• Amalie Emmy Noether was a German mathematician who made many important contributions to abstract algebra. She discovered Noether's theorem, which is fundamental in mathematical physics. [from Wikipedia]