Hypatia of Alexandria

This post is a tribute to one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world, Hypatia (Yπατία) of Alexandria.

Hypatia at the School of Athens by Raphael

Hypatia was born between 350 and 370 A.D to the mathematician Theon Alexandricus, a librarian of the Library of Alexandria. She was trained in Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy and Philosophy, and was a Neoplatonist philosopher. She travelled to Athens and Italy to study (something unheard of for women at the time), and rose to the position of the Head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, where she taught the philosophy of Plato and Socrates to her students, some of whom travelled large distances to study under her.

She preferred to dress in the style of men and drive her chariot herself. She had a large number of students who were from Greece as well as other countries. Though most of her works have been lost in the dark ages, some of those we know about are:

• A commentary on the 13-volume Arithmetica by Diophantus.

• A commentary on the Conics of Apollonius

• Edited the existing version of Ptolemy's Almagest

• Edited her father's commentary on Euclid's Elements (According to one account, when she was 19)

• She wrote a text "The Astronomical Canon."(Possibly a new edition of Ptolemy's Handy Tables.)

She was a good engineer as well, and some of the inventions credited to her are the hydrometer, and a version of the astrolabe.

So...what was the fate of this remarkable woman? The church condemned her as a witch and accused her of bewitching the Imperial Prefect, Orestes. One day, on her way to work, she was mobbed by a group of men. She was pulled off her chariot, (by her hair according to one source) dragged through the city, and brought to a church called Caesarion. Here, she was stripped, and killed by scraping the skin off her body with broken tiles and shells. Her body was torn to pieces and burnt, and her bones scattered on the ground to bleach in the sun.

Carl Sagan talks about Hypatia:

Throughout history, Hypatia has been hailed as a saint, and condemned as a witch and a pagan. She has recently been sainted as a Virian Saint by the Church of Virus. In my opinion, Hypatia was a person who devoted her life to the pursuit of knowledge, and died because of her gender. The motive for her murder might have been political, but the actual deed – stripping and flaying, then leaving her bones in the sun - shows the fear that men have always had of an intelligent woman. If killing a person because of their identity makes them a martyr, Hypatia is a martyr to the feminist cause. She is, in a way, a Feminist Saint.

For her on Women's Day:

போற்றி போற்றி! ஓர் ஆயிரம் போற்றி! நின்

பொன்ன டிக்குப்பல் லாயிரம் போற்றிகாண்