Emma Markovna Lehmer (née Trotskaia) is known for her work on reciprocity laws in algebraic number theory. She preferred to deal with complex number fields and integers, rather than the more abstract aspects of the theory.

Born in Samara, Russia on November 6, 1906, her father's job as a representative with a Russian sugar company moved the family to Harbin, Manchuria in 1910. Emma was tutored at home until the age of 14, when a school was opened locally. She managed to make her way to the USA for her higher education. November 6 is the 310th day of the year (311th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 55 days remaining. ... 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

At UC Berkeley, she started out in engineering in 1924, but found her niche in mathematics. One of her professors was Derrick N. Lehmer, the number theorist well known for his work on prime number tables and factorizations. While working for him at Berkeley finding pseudosquares, she met his son Derrick H. Lehmer. Upon her graduation summa cum lauda with a B.A. in Mathematics (1928), Emma married Derrick the son. They moved to Brown University, where Emma received her Sc.M., and Derrick his Ph.D, both in 1930. Emma did not obtain a Ph.D. herself. Most universities had nepotism rules which prevented husband and wife from both holding teaching positions, although Emma claimed there were many advantages to not holding a Ph.D.

The Lehmers had two children, Laura (1932) and Donald (1934). Emma did independent mathematical work, including a translation from Russian to English of Pontryagin's book Topological Groups. She worked closely with her husband on many projects; 21 of her 60-some publications were joint work with him. Her publications were mainly in number theory and computation, with emphasis on reciprocity laws, special primes, and congruences. Lev Semenovich Pontryagin (Russian: Лев Семёнович Понтрягин) (3 September 1908- 3 May 1988) was a Soviet/Russian mathematician. ...

References and External Links

• Biographies of Women Mathematicians
• The Lehmers at Berkeley
• The Princeton Mathematics Community in the 1930s
• The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive