She is remembered for her lectures and as a caring instructor who cared for students and always brought out the best in them. Many women mathematicians were faced with gender issues when they looked for employment or teaching positions. In all the sources we looked consulted for this paper we didn t find any that addressed any such issues with Olga Taussky-Todd. Of course it is possible, and even probable that she ran into gender issues, however our sources did not elaborate on this. Olga s main focus was number theory, but she was later introduced to a branch of math called matrix theory.
Matrices come into play in a lot of math aspects.
Some of these aspects are algebra, differential equations, probability, and other fields as well. Taussky-Todd was introduced to matrix theory during WWII after taking a position at the National Physical Laboratory in London. She worked here with a group investigating flutter, which is an aerodynamic phenomenon. In flight, interactions between aerodynamic forces and a flexing airframe induce vibrations. When an airplane flies at a speed greater than a certain threshold, those self-excited vibrations become unstable, leading to flutter.