Pauca sed matura

Gauss came from extremely humble origins. His grandfather was a landless peasant; his father was a jobbing gardener and bricklayer. Gauss attended the poorest kind of local school.

His personal seal showed a tree with only one sparse fruit, and the motto, Pauca sed matura - "Few, but ripe."

- Prime Obsession, John Derbyshire

Noether taught at Erlangen for the next seven years with no salary, sometimes substituting for her father. David Hilbert sought to bring her into the mathematics department at the University of Göttingen in 1915, but other faculty objected. “What will our soldiers think when they return to the university and find that they are required to learn at the feet of a woman?” one professor complained. Hilbert was indignant. “I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission,” he retorted. “We are a university, not a bath house.” - March 23, 1882: Birth of Emmy Noether