Hypatia of Alexandria
c. 370-415
Egyptian Mathematician, Astronomer, and Philosopher
Hypatia of Alexandria was, in her prime, the leading mathematician and philosopher in Western civilization. Although she is not credited with new theorems in mathematics, Hypatia's work was crucial in preserving and explaining the work of earlier mathematicians and astronomers. For a woman of her time, Hypatia's fame and stature were unprecedented, and in recent years she has been adopted as a symbol for feminists, religious partisans, and those interested in her Egyptian heritage.
Hypatia was the daughter of Theon, the last known head of the museum at Alexandria, Egypt, an ancient center of classical learning. By the late fourth century, Alexandria was the intellectual center of the Western world, a center of Hellenic scholarship and science.
Hypatia was taught by her father and worked with him. Historians do not know whether shetraveled or whether she stayed in Alexandria all her life, but she may well have studied in Athens. Hypatia taught mathematics and philosophy in Alexandria, perhaps through the museum and perhaps on her own. She had many influential students and associates, including the Roman prefect of Alexandria and a future Christian bishop. It is quite certain that she never married.
Hypatia of Alexandria. (Bettmann/Corbis. Reproduced with permission.)Hypatia and Theon are not credited with new theorems in mathematics, but their work was crucial in preserving and explaining the work of earlier mathematicians and astronomers. Theon's editions and commentaries are the primary source for our knowledge of many of the works of Euclid (c. 300 B.C.) and Ptolemy (second century A.D.). Scholars know that Hypatia prepared at least one of Theon's commentaries on Ptolemy's Almagest, as Theon credits her in his introduction to the work. The Almagest was the basis of astronomical work in both the Western and the Islamic world until astronomy was rewritten in the sixteenth century by Copernicus (1473-1543). Theon's commentaries were a way of offering a teacher's explanation of the text, and Hypatia was renowned for her teaching. So it is logical that she would expand the influence of her teaching through clarifying and expounding on texts.
None of Hypatia's writings exist today, but ancient reports tell us that she wrote commentaries on Diophantus (third century A.D.), a Greek mathematician whose major innovation was the introduction of symbolism into algebra. Some previously lost chapters of Diophantus's text have been found in an Arabic translation. Because these chapters are more carefully written than those in Greek and have clear explanations, it may be that Hypatia's commentary survives as part of this translation. The work of Diophantus is unique in the Greek tradition because of its emphasis on algebra rather than geometry, so Hypatia's contribution to preserving it was a true service that helps us understand the historical basis of today's algebra.
Hypatia also wrote a commentary on the Conics of Apollonius of Perga (c. 262-c. 190 B.C.), another Greek mathematician. Apollonius's work contains some of the most advanced and difficult work in Greek geometry. His Conics was the inspiration for Ptolemy's description of planetary orbits in the second century A.D., and in the seventeenth century for Descartes (1596-1650) and Fermat (1601-1665) as those two mathematicians developed analytical geometry. Existing texts have been analyzed for signs of Hypatia's writing and may provide some clues of her editing.
Much legend has been built around Hypatia, but we do have reliable reports of her death in 415 at the hands of a Christian mob, which seized her on the street, beat her, then dragged her body to a church, where they scraped the flesh from her bones with sea shells. At the time, Alexandria was experiencing violent disputes between Christians and non-Christians as well as between religious and civil leaders. Hypatia's horrible death was probably brought about by her high standing in the community, her friendship with Orestes, the leading Roman official in Alexandria, and the fact that she was a non-Christian in an increasingly Christian atmosphere. She also represented learning and science, which the early Christians associated with paganism. After his appointment in 412, the Christian bishop Cyril attempted to assert his control over the city and over Orestes, his rival. If Cyril did not order Hypatia's death, he certainly created the climate that would vilify a pagan woman allied with Orestes. Fortunately, Hypatia's writings were not singled out for destruction. Instead, her work helped maintain the mathematical and astronomical tradition of earlier scholars, and mathematicians continue to examine the ways in which her commentaries enhanced this tradition.
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