Hypatia of Egypt
Time-line card:
Full name: Hypatia
Date of birth and death: c. 370 - 415
Place of Birth: Alexandria, Egypt
Math concept: inventor of astrolabe and worked on Apollonius’ concepts on conics
Background Information:
Description of Hypatia’s life
-spent entire life in Alexandria, Egypt
-no evidence she left the city
-lived with father Theon who was a mathematician and astronomer. He was known to have been associated
with the Alexandrian Museum (an institution of higher learning)
-she was born around c.370 (uncertain)
-she surpassed her father’s talents in mathematics and especially in astronomy
-she learned how to track the movements of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn
-Her philosophical inclinations tended toward ethics and morals, science and reasoning
-she was involved in politics, a political figure that pushed for scientific rationalism
-well respected teacher and loved by her students
-she taught mathematics and philosophy, gave public lectures, and possibly held some kind of public office
-she wrote books with her father
-best recorded event of her life is her death
-brutally murdered---a crowd of Christian mob seized her, stripped her and dismembered her and burned
the pieces of her corpse
-however another account tells that she was burned alive, but this is the less accurate version
-actual causes not fully known…speculations that she was murdered because she was a well-known public
figure and/or as a result of her mathematical activities and possibly because of religious differences
-generally accepted date of her death 415
Major events in that time period
-Alexandria around 400 was a mix of cultures
-Majority were Christians, there were also Jews and Gnostics
-Alexandria part of Roman Empire
-Roman Empire split in 395 into Western Empire (ruled from Rome) and the Eastern Empire (ruled from
Constantinople)
-Julian the Apostate reigned over both Empire from 361 to 363
-Orestes a local governor(Christian) at the time of Hypatia’s death sympathetic to other views, but his
authority was challenged by Cyril (St. Cyril of Alexandria) who was not very accepting
-Cyril acceded to bishopric in 412
-differences in the city led to violence—libraries associated with the Museum were destroyed
1
Math Concept/Contributions
-Synesius’s (one of Hypatia’s students) references in letters mention Hypatia as the inventor of astrolabe
which is an instrument used to study astronomy
-Hypatia taught about astrolabes
-Hypatia worked on Apollonius’(lived in 200 B.C.) concepts on conics and she is well known for that
-she edited works such as “On the Conics of Apollonius”, and this particular work divided cones into
different parts by a plane. Furthermore, this concept led to the development of ideas about parabolas,
hyperbolas, and ellipses.
-she developed a water distilling instrument, another for measuring water and a graduated brass hydrometer
that determines the gravity of liquid
-edited works of geometry, algebra, and astronomy
-Hypatia’s work later expanded by Descartes, Newton, and Leibniz
Where her interests came from
-learned Math from father
-Theon taught her religion
-she was associated with a different school which is the Neo-platonic school
Is she famous?
-first woman mathematician of whom detailed knowledge is known of
-a lot of info on her but not very accurate and very little known about her Mathematics
-evidence demonstrates she was regarded as a teacher and a scholar
-at the time of her death was the greatest mathematician living in Greco-Roman world, possibly the whole
world
Sources:
1. "Of Stars and Numbers: The Story of Hypatia" (kids book) by
D. Anne Love
2. Hypatia of Alexandria (from physics.ucsc.edu/~drip/7B/hypatia.pdf)
3. A Christian Martyr in Reverse Hypatia: 370-415 AD A vivid portrait of
the life and death of Hypatia as seen through the eyes of a feminist poet
and novelist by Ursule Molinaro. (Hypatia vil 4, no.1 Spring 1989)
4. Hypatia and her Mathematics in The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 101 (3), 1994,
p. 234-243 by Michael A. B. Deakin.
2