Hypatia, the earliest known woman mathematician, wrote commentaries on several classic works of mathematics. The daughter of a mathematician, she was trained in mathematics and philosophy and became head of the Neoplatonic school at Alexandria, where she taught philosophical doctrines dating back to Plato's Academy. Hypatia was a respected teacher and influential citizen of Alexandria, greatly admired for her knowledge as well as for her decorum and dignity. Although Hypatia's original work has not survived, she is known from the letters of her student Synesius of Cyrene. She is also mentioned in the fifth-century Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, and in the tenth-century Lexicon of Suda (or Suidas). Information about Hypatia is fragmentary and oblique, fact and fiction have mingled, and her life has become the stuff of legend, inconsistencies, and conflicting opinions.
Hypatia was born in Alexandria, Egypt; the year is generally thought to be 370, although some scholars argue for an earlier date, 355. Founded on the Nile River by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., Alexandria had been the center of scholarly attainment in science, and during Hypatia's time was the third largest city in the Roman Empire. Hypatia's father, Theon, was a member of the Museum, a place of residence, study, and teaching similar to a modern university. A mathematician and astronomer, Theon had predicted eclipses of the sun and the moon which were observed in Alexandria, and his scholarship included commentaries on Euclid and Claudius Ptolemy. Hypatia was taught by Theon, collaborated with him, and did independent work. Whereas Theon also produced poetic work and a treatise on the interpretation of omens, Hypatia's works seem to have been strictly mathematical.
Hypatia was recognized as a gifted scholar and eloquent teacher, and by 390 her circle of influence was well-established. By 400, she was head of the Neoplatonic school, for which she received a salary. Socrates Scholasticus, the Byzantine church historian, wrote that Hypatia was so learned in literature and science that she exceeded all contemporary philosophers. Philostorgius, another historian, noted that she surpassed her father in mathematics, and especially in astronomy. From Synesius' letters to and about her, it is clear Hypatia had extensive knowledge of Greek literature. Her students were aristocratic young men, both pagan and Christian, who rose to occupy influential civil and ecclesiastical positions. They came from elsewhere in Egypt, and from as far away as Cyrene, Syria, and Constantinople to study privately with Hypatia in her home. They were united through intellectual pursuits and considered Hypatia their "divine guide" into the realm of philosophical and cosmic mysteries, which included mathematics. Hypatia combined the principles of free thinking with the ideal of pure living. She was known for her prudence, moderation and self-control, for her ease of manner, and for her beauty. She chose to remain a virgin and to devote her life to pursuit of knowledge and the philosophical ideal. According to an account in Suda, which may be apocryphal, when one of her students fell in love with her, she threw at him a rag that was the equivalent of a sanitary napkin, saying "You are in love with this, not with [the Platonic ideal of] the Beautiful."
By wearing a tribon, the characteristic rough white robe of the philosopher, Hypatia indicated that she did not wish to be treated as a woman. She traveled freely about the city in her chariot, instructed her students in Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, visited and lectured at public and scientific institutions. She had exerted political influence and may have held a political position. In one of his letters to her, Synesius asks Hypatia to intervene with her powerful friends to restore the property of two young men. Throughout his life Synesius remained devoted to Hypatia, praised her erudition, and asked for advice on his own writings. He must have visited her the several times he visited Alexandria, including in 410, when he was consecrated as Bishop of Ptolemais by Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria.
Although several of Theon's mathematical and astronomical works have survived, Hypatia's have not. It is known that Hypatia wrote a treatise titled Astronomical Canon, presumably on the movements of the planets, and a commentary on the algebraic work of Diophantus of Alexandria, which contains the beginnings of number theory. Diophantus, who lived in the third century A.D., is quoted by Theon, and some scholars believe that the survival of most of Diophantus' original thirteen books of the Arithmetica is due to the quality of Hypatia's work. The surviving texts, including six in Greek and four translated into Arabic, contain notes, remarks, and interpolations that may come from Hypatia's commentary. Hypatia also wrote On the Conics of Apollonius, in which she elaborated on Apollonius' third-century B.C. theory of conic sections.
In collaboration with Theon, Hypatia also worked on Ptolemy's Almagest, the second-century work which brought together disparate works of early Greeks in 13 volumes and served as the standard reference on astronomy for more than 1,000 years. In the Almagest, Ptolemyintroduced a method of classifying stars, and used Apollonius' mathematics to construct a masterful (though incorrect) theory of epicycles to explain the movement of the sun, moon and planets in a geocentric system. Hypatia may have corrected not only her father's commentary but also the text of Almagest itself, and may also have prepared a new edition of Ptolemy's Handy Tables , which appears in the work of Hesychius under the title The Astronomical Canon.
Synesius' letters reveal Hypatia's interest in scientific instruments. In one instance he asks her to have a hydroscope(an instrument for measuring the specific gravity of a liquid) made for him. In another, he consults her about the construction of an astrolabe, an instrument used to measure the position of the stars and planets.
In Hypatia's time, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire, and Greek temples were converted to Christian churches. In 411, Cyril succeeded Theophilus as bishop of Alexandria. One of his actions, following Jewish-Christian riots, was to expel Jews from the city. Orestes, the civil governor, disapproved of Cyril's actions and the growing encroachment of the Christian church on civil authority. Cyril roused negative sentiment toward Orestes, and Orestes was attacked by five hundred Nitrian monks, who lived in monasteries outside the city. The monk Ammonius threw a stone that wounded Orestes. Intervention by the populace saved Orestes, who then ordered Ammonius tortured to the extent that he died. Cyril applauded Ammonius' actions as admirable.
Hypatia fell victim to these political hostilities. She was a close associate of Orestes, and undoubtedly was defamed by Cyril. Admiration for her turned to resentment, and she was perceived as an obstacle to the conciliation of Orestes and Cyril. In March of 415, during Lent, as Hypatia rode in her chariot through the streets of Alexandria, she was attacked upon by a fanatical mob of antipagan Christians. The mob dragged Hypatia into the Caesareum, then a Christian church, where she was stripped naked and murdered. According to ancient accounts, Hypatia's flesh was stripped from her bones, her body mutilated and scattered throughout the streets, then burned piecemeal at a place called Cinaron.
Following Hypatia's murder many of her students migrated to Athens, where they contributed to the Athenian school, which in 420 acquired a considerable reputation in mathematics. The Neoplatonic school at Alexandria continued until the Arab invasion of 642. The books in the library at Alexandria were subsequently used as fuel for the city's baths, where they lasted six months. Hypatia's works were probably among them.
This is the complete article, containing 1,243 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).
