Should we rename an SI unit after Emmy Noether?

The unit of momentum is currently known as kilogram metres per second (kg m/s) according to the International System of Units. However, in a letter to the American Journal of Physics a teacher has started a campaign for it to become know as the noether.

Emmy Noether was a mathematician who changed physics with her discovery that symmetries are at the heart of physical laws.

[MsSlash]

In my honest opinion, no. Emmy Noether was a Mathematician, an Algebraist first and foremost; nowadays people might remember her for her theorem, which even if it is essentially an Abstract Algebra theorem, it is often useful in Physics.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Emmy Noether (as a matter of fact, I’m not even a Physicist, I’m a Mathematician/Algebraist myself), but when we name units after people, we do that in honour of their experimental endeavour, not simply because they were smart people from the past.

We name the unit of pressure Pascal, because Blaise Pascal shocked the world with his barrel experiment, really clarifying what Pressure was.
When we name the unit of frequency Hertz, we do that because Rudolf Hertz was the first to make EM waves in a lab.
When we name the unit of electric potential Volt, we do so in honour of Alessandro Volta who first constructed the electric battery, which is essentially a thing that keeps electric potential.

In short, the people we name units after don’t just have to be brainiacs. They have to be experimental physicists.

[realFranklinfurter]

Curie is a unit of measurement.
And well deserved. Women are awesome and it doesn't require pity to establish their legacy.

Edit/correction: Originally, it was attributed to her husband, Pierre and not Marie. And I'm a little disappointed to learn this.

[thiagocavalcanti]

In my humble opinion, I think we should do the opposite. In anatomy, there has been this movement to change the names of anatomical structures from last names to something more... friendly to learners. Why not do the same here?

[TheeSlickShady_Dave_K]

Let’s honor her in another way
A prize or award maybe ?

I am sick and tired of renames, remakes, reboots, and rewrites
— becomes confusing and is usually not necessary
(or used only for political or sexist reasons)

Let’s make something new for Emmy
(plus her last name being tough to pronounce would hinder the memory of her)

[ian]

she discovered an amazingly useful and super deep relationship between symmetries and conserved quantities. it is super useful in theoretical physics. i don't think it's good enough to name linear momentum after her, especially since it applies equally well to energy, angular momentum, basically anything associated with any sort of continuous or discrete lie group. it is much more fundamental than SI units. it would be better to rename "conserved quantity" to "noether quantity", where i've made it not capitalized to emphasize its ubiquity and importance.

[yogeshpravin-cqki]

science is a field where men and women are equal. madam Curie is an example of it..if any woman deserves it she will get it.. without any discrimination.

[Ghost-rgns]

Quite silly given that the rate of change of Momentum is Force which already has a unit. Momentum change divided by time is called the 'Newton' and it's ascribed to Newton having spent years contemplating the laws of motion. I respect the pursuers of knowledge regardless of gender. What I don't respect is virtue-signalling, which is what you are doing... Whataboutery while maximising profits in the publishing house, keeping science behind paywalls, all the while it's done by taxpayer money. It's neither free for scientists nor for the public who paid for it.

[philipb]

We might name some unit in honor of Lise Meitner. I would be fully on-board.

[amdredlambda]

we have a women's name in the SI unit! 😁 Candela!

🥺 don't tell me, this was a terrible joke. With deep heartfelt sorrow is to say that Prof. Emmy, Noether’s Theorem, Noether rings, linear transformations, commutative number fields, and conservation laws, are not coherent -system of units of measurement-.

In changing the units of momentum to Noether it will be as scientific as to change the units of the speed of light to Maxwell. Basically incomprehensible, besides that N and M are already taken.

Let's pass this idea quietly.

[lilamdan]

The aerial length of Maryland may be called Mary unit of length

[Waffle_Leafeon]

Literally anything but kg•m/s just make it one letter and I’m in support

[pandakso]

Maybe it is better to start a campaign to have people understand why such a thing would be important to do now. While most people understand physics and academia are historically male dominated, many think it is not a problem anymore (however wrong that thought is)

[lilamdan]

There is a unit of time named after goddess. Friday, the day of Freja

[lucaslouzada]

Noether was above all a mathematician. That’s a very unnatural stretch.

[lilamdan]

You can use the name of a woman who appears on a cash piece as the word for a unit of wealth

[birajsharma]

I support the name change because she made significant contributions BUT not because she is a woman or because it's your mouthful!

[TylerMatthewHarris]

Didn’t Marie Curie have something named after her? It doesn’t bother me but it’s just one more thing to confuse people

[Traintoytrain]

Um noether to that! More confusion to real world work

[JAGFG]

Maybe it’s cuse you are talking and not doing science.

[Gorrgrim]

I'm a man and i could care less whether the units are named after 17 women, men, or aliens