Hypatia

Hypatia (born c. 355 CE—died March 415, Alexandria) was a mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who lived in a very turbulent era in Alexandria's history.[1] She is the earliest female mathematician of whose life and work reasonably detailed knowledge exists.[1] Hypatia was the daughter of Theon of Alexandria, himself a mathematician and astronomer and the last attested member of the Alexandrian Museum.[1]

Early Life and Education

Hypatia was the daughter of the mathematician and philosopher Theon of Alexandria and it is fairly certain that she studied mathematics under the guidance and instruction of her father.[2] Theon raised Hypatia in a world of education.[4] Theon himself was a well known scholar and a professor of mathematics at the University of Alexandria.[4]

Theon raised Hypatia to be strong in both mind and body. He taught her mathematics and astronomy as well as the arts, literature, speech, philosophy, and such disciplines as swimming, horseback riding, and mountain climbing.[9] She eventually surpassed her father's mathematical skills.[9]

Mathematical and Scholarly Work

She was, in her time, the world's leading mathematician and astronomer, the only woman for whom such claim can be made.[1] Hypatia continued his program, which was essentially a determined effort to preserve the Greek mathematical and astronomical heritage in extremely difficult times.[1]

There is no evidence that Hypatia undertook original mathematical research. However she assisted her father Theon of Alexandria in writing his eleven part commentary on Ptolemy's Almagest.[2] She is credited with commentaries on Apollonius of Perga's Conics (geometry) and Diophantus of Alexandria's Arithmetic (number theory), as well as an astronomical table.[1]

Hypatia was known more for the work she did in mathematics than in astronomy, primarily for her work on the ideas of conic sections introduced by Apollonius. She edited the work On the Conics of Apollonius, which divided cones into different parts by a plane.[4]

Relationship to Euclid's Elements

Theon is best remembered for the part he played in the preservation of Euclid's Elements, but he also wrote extensively, commenting on Ptolemy's Almagest and Handy Tables.[1] The father of Hypatia, Theon of Alexandria (c. 335–405 ce), edited the Elements with textual changes and some additions; his version quickly drove other editions out of existence, and it remained the Greek source for all subsequent Arabic and Latin translations until 1808, when an earlier edition was discovered in the Vatican.[11]

It is also thought that she also assisted her father in producing a new version of Euclid's Elements which has become the basis for all later editions of Euclid.[2] Their version of Euclid's Elements became the basis for all later editions of Euclid.[9] Heath writes of Theon and Hypatia's edition of the Elements: "while making only inconsiderable additions to the content of the 'Elements', he endeavoured to remove difficulties that might be felt by learners in studying the book, as a modern editor might do in editing a classical text-book for use in schools."[2]

Teaching and Philosophy

She was also a popular teacher and lecturer on philosophical topics of a less-specialist nature, attracting many loyal students and large audiences.[1] She is described by all commentators as a charismatic teacher.[2] It is rather remarkable that Hypatia became head of the Platonist school at Alexandria in about 400 AD. There she lectured on mathematics and philosophy, in particular teaching the philosophy of Neoplatonism.[2]

Her philosophy was Neoplatonist and was thus seen as "pagan" at a time of bitter religious conflict between Christians (both orthodox and "heretical"), Jews, and pagans.[1] Hypatia taught these philosophical ideas with a greater scientific emphasis than earlier followers of Neoplatonism.[2] Her Neoplatonism was concerned with the approach to the One, an underlying reality partially accessible via the human power of abstraction from the Platonic forms, themselves abstractions from the world of everyday reality.[1]

However, among the pupils whom she taught in Alexandria there were many prominent Christians. One of the most famous is Synesius of Cyrene who was later to become the Bishop of Ptolemais. Many of the letters that Synesius wrote to Hypatia have been preserved and we see someone who was filled with admiration and reverence for Hypatia's learning and scientific abilities.[2]

Political Context and Death

By 364, when the Roman Empire split and Alexandria became part of the eastern half, the city was beset by fighting among Christians, Jews and pagans.[6] In 412 Cyril (later St Cyril) became patriarch of Alexandria. However the Roman prefect of Alexandria was Orestes and Cyril and Orestes became bitter political rivals as church and state fought for control.[2]

Hypatia was a friend of Orestes and this, together with prejudice against her philosophical views which were seen by Christians to be pagan, led to Hypatia becoming the focal point of riots between Christians and non-Christians.[2] With the deaths of Synesius and Theophilus and the accession of Cyril to the bishopric of Alexandria, however, this climate of tolerance lapsed, and shortly afterward Hypatia became the victim of a particularly brutal murder.[1]

Hypatia died in March of 415.[1] Hypatia was brutally murdered by a mob of Christian fanatics. They pulled her from her carriage on a street in Alexandria, dragged her to a church, stripped her naked, beat her to death and/or flayed her, tore off her limbs. One day on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, in the year 415 or 416, a mob of Christian zealots led by Peter the Lector accosted a woman's carriage and dragged her from it and into a church, where they stripped her and beat her to death with roofing tiles. They then tore her body apart and burned it.[6]

Legacy and Historical Significance

Hypatia was one of the last great thinkers of ancient Alexandria and one of the first women to study and teach mathematics, astronomy and philosophy. Though she is remembered more for her violent death, her dramatic life is a fascinating lens through which we may view the plight of science in an era of religious and sectarian conflict.[6]

Whatever the precise motivation for the murder, the departure soon afterward of many scholars marked the beginning of the decline of Alexandria as a major centre of ancient learning.[2] Based on this small amount of evidence Deakin argues that Hypatia was an excellent compiler, editor, and preserver of earlier mathematical works.[2]

Even though Hypatia's own works did not survive, they have still had an important influence. Her careful commentary on the algebraic work of Diophantus most likely led to the survival of most of his original thirteen books of the Arithmetica. Six of the surviving works are in Greek and four are translations in Arabic, all of which contain notes and interpolations that probably come from Hypatia's commentary.[9]