I think she's actually genuinely underecognized, but that it has to do with that her most notable work is a theoretical result and not a physical theory, and thus something only appreciated by people who read theory, like university students in physics or mathematics.
What’s interesting about this discussion is that she had far more results in mathematics than physics. She was a pioneer in commutative algebra and discovered a lot of fundamental theorems and concepts in commutative algebra.
Indeed, people in this thread are way overestimating how many average people even know who Euler is.
It’s OK if mathematicians are obscure in the general population. That’s part of the deal when you become a mathematician. I don’t know many footballers either.
I would much rather the general public filled their heads with basic mathematical concepts, rather than the names of mathematicians. As Feynman said (paraphrasing), knowing the name of something is rather useless if you don’t know anything else about it.
I'd suggest this meets the definition of hiding in plain sight.
The general public is interested in female contributions to science on the whole. And they would appreciate knowing about Noether. And the physics community by an large does know her.
But that information has not escaped the relatively esoteric setting of physics education.
On top of that I'd be curious how many of those who know of the symmetry conservation link, know of it as Noether's theorem and how many know Noether was a woman. I bet not much! Just speculation.
Again that would be hiding in plain sight in my book.
NGL when learning Noether’s theorem I thought Emmy was short for something like Emiliano. It wasn’t until long afterwards that I found out that she was a she, and the struggles she had along the way because of that.
At the time I wouldn’t have cared anyway. I was bombarded with so many names of people through equations, experiments, etc that I didn’t care if they were a man, woman, or carrier pigeon. I just cared what the result meant and how I could use it. It’s only after the fact, long after I left academia, that I started to see these people as humans with real lives and stories.
