I am looking for a good book on Noether's life. Not only a biography, but a book that also explains her life's work to a general, somewhat mathematically mature audience. If such a book is not available, then a book aimed at graduate students would be the next best thing.
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$\begingroup$ MBW Tent, Emmy Noether: The Mother of Modern Algebra (2008) and see the review $\endgroup$ – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Mar 6 '15 at 20:14
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$\begingroup$ @MauroALLEGRANZA Seems right for me. $\endgroup$ – The very fluffy Panda Mar 7 '15 at 0:15
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2$\begingroup$ That book by Tent is not good as a real source on Noether's life. It is aimed at young children and has fictional stories. The funniest thing is the cover, which is a woman who is most definitely not Emmy Noether, so the cover is fictional too. When I saw that book for sale at a math meeting I was startled at how such an error could happen. The explanation can be read at rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~ci3/noetherphoto-engl.pdf. If you want an account of her life and mathematical work, why not look at www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Noether_Emmy.html? $\endgroup$ – KCd Mar 7 '15 at 4:38
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Emmy Noether's Wonderful Theorem by Dwight E. Neuenschwander.
The title says it all: the book explains Noether's theorem in detail. Everything is derived and explained from scratch: the action principle, symmetries, Lagrangians, Hamiltonians,... The style very reader-friendly, it is not a textbook. However, the book is only meant for those who have enough mathematical background (in particular maths and physics undergrads). The introduction contains a short (4-page) biography.
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$\begingroup$ According to a recent-ish article in the Bulletin of the AMS this book is historically quite inaccurate. $\endgroup$ – Marius Kempe Apr 8 '15 at 15:41
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Some books about Emmy Noether:
The first two is more biographical, the last two contain formal details too.
