Hypatia Research Paper

Today, we meet a great 4th-century mathematician, Hypatia. Hypatia of Alexandria was an outstanding individual and didn’t only bless the math world but also involved in Neoplatonist, and rationalist. The part of Hypatia’s life we are going to examine today is her life in mathematics. She was brought up in the math world ushered by her father Theon of Alexandria, and eventually replaced him as the mathematician of Alexandria (Osen).

Hypatia was born in a museum, it was the great center of learning and the storehouse of knowledge in the ancient world, in the year of AD 370. Hypatia was gifted in every way, she was beautiful, and about as smart as they come. A famous quote from her father reads “Reserve your right to think, for even the wrongly is better than not to think at all. Theon had high expectations for his daughter for he was intent on producing a perfect human being. For this reason, Hypatia was a fortunate child. Theon also made his daughter do physical activities, such as rowing, swimming, and horseback riding, to keep Hypatia physically fit. Hypatia was trained in speech enhancing her ability to relay her knowledge to others and her giftedness to be an orator (Eves).

Hypatia was also very well-traveled, while traveling abroad in Athens, Greece, Hypitaia attended a university where she established her fame as a mathematician. One of the greatest attributes of Hypatia is she didn’t take her knowledge and keep it sealed to herself, she also was a teacher. She taught neo-Platonist philosophy, and astronomy, at the same institute as her father, and was regarded as an excellent teacher (Eugene).

Hypatia

became an excellent public speaker and scholar, also esteeming from her father as he was the head faculty at the local library. There she wrote on Astronomy and Mathematics, and worked on algebraic equations and conic sections. She aided the Math world by inventing the astrolabe for ship navigation and devices for measuring the density of fluids (Osen). She was involved with a few men but never settled down, she thought it would only hinder her advancement.
The story of Hypatia’s death isn’t a pretty one, she died at the early age of 45. Alexandria was divided between Christians and non-Christians political power was also divided and this ran the tension high in the town. The power was divided between Bishop Cyril and Hypatia’s close friend Orestes. Cyril was only looking for power and never had any intensions of bettering Alexandria (Osen). Hypatia was a rationalist and Cyril was a conservative and dogmatic, quite the opposite the two were. The two were known enemies and Cyril was out to get Hypatia. In AD 415 Cyril’s thugs carried out a political uprising and made Hypatia the target. They began a riot and in the middle of it they kidnapped Hypatia on her way to the library. They hauled her from her keepers tortured her horribly, and finally burned her alive (Osen). Like I said her death is not a pretty one!
Hypatia shouldn’t be remembered for her death but rather her life. She didn’t only have a brilliant mind but also a brilliant heart. Hypatia was not selfish, she didn’t hold in her knowledge she gave it to the world. Hypatia went down in my book as a true hero.

Works Cited
Eugene Boman, reviewer, “Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr,” Convergence (December 2007)
Eves, H.

W. (1964). "An introduction to the history of mathematics" (5th ed.). New York, NY: The Saunders Series.

Osen, L. M. (1992). "Women in mathematics." Cmabridge, MA: The Massachusetts Institute of

Technology.