Hypatia of Alexandria: biography and contributions of this Greek philosopher

Hypatia of Alexandria was an illustrious woman with a great training in various areas such as mathematics, astronomy and philosophy, she being documented as the first woman mathematician and scientist of the history.

She worked as a teacher in a school in the city of Alexandria and throughout her life she dedicated herself to cultivate her intellect and her curiosity to continually learn, allowing her to discover great stuff. She also showed political and social interest in what is happening at her time.

In this biography of Hypatia of Alexandria We will do a brief review of her life and her contributions to science.

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Brief biography of Hypatia of Alexandria

Hypatia, whose name can also be written as Hypatia, was born and always lived in the city of Alexandria (Egypt), between the year 355 and 370 AD. C., since the year in which she was born is not known with certainty, although most historians refer to the year 370 as the year in which she was born.

Hypatia's father was Theon, a man of Greek origin who settled in the city of Alexandria. Teón realized numerous works related to diverse subjects (philosophy, astronomy, mathematics and other sciences). In addition, Father Hypatia was the last director of the Serapeo Museum, the second most important library in Alexandria and a place where Hypatia also worked teaching classes like her father. About Hypatia's mother, on the other hand, there is no document that talks about her.

Thanks to her father, Hypatia she was brought up in an intellectual environment, with a continuous search to learn and belonging to the Alexandrian Neoplatonic school. Many historians agree that Hypatia was the first woman to have reference to her knowledge of mathematics and other sciences.

In addition, her passion to learn from it, led her to acquire knowledge about philosophy, history of religions, principles of pedagogy and many other areas of a different nature.

Hypatia had the great luck, for the time in which she lived, to grow up with all kinds of means at her disposal that allowed her to develop her intellect from a young age and become the great scientist with a great preparation that I become.

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Destruction of the Serapeo Museum

In 391, Emperor Theodosius I the Great, at the request of a patriarch named Theophilus of Alexandria, he ordered to destroy all the temples that were pagan in Alexandria, among which was the Museum Serapeo.

A) Yes, Theon and Hypatia had to take home all the documents that had not been destroyed in order to be able to keep them so that he can continue working there and teach his students.

Lifestyle of Hypatia of Alexandria

The lives of Hypatia and her father, Theon, were marked by asceticism, because they followed an austere lifestyle, of renunciation of material pleasures and hedonism, so that they dedicated themselves to cultivating physical, mental and spiritual perfection.

Hypatia learned from her father to cultivate her body, and not just her intellect, through a daily routine of physical exercise because both followed the idea that says "healthy mind in healthy body", so they looked for the balance to have a clear mind and a healthy physique.

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Political and social life of Hypatia

Hypatia of Alexandria was a learned woman, so it has been documented that she was highly admired by most of the citizens of Alexandria, highlighting that she moved in a carriage through the city and dressed in a white cloak, just like the philosophers did.

There are also writings that relate that his presence was frequent in scientific and public institutions of the city, always worrying about political and social problems, holding meetings with municipal officials and officials of the Empire.

In addition, he attended scientific lectures and discussions on mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy with other teachers and young people from his library or school.

On the other hand, his prestige also sparked envy and indignation on the part of some citizens, motives among which are the causes of his murder.

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Her career as a teacher

Hypatia she taught in a school for more than 20 years on different subjects (astronomy, mathematics and philosophy), reaching a greater prestige than her father, Theon; she became the maximum intellectual influence in the city after the death of her father.

Her classes were attended by students from all over and most of them used to belong to the aristocracy, although there were also municipalities, foreigners, scientists, officials, politicians and scholars, among others; For this reason, Hypatia became a very famous teacher because all of her students felt a great admiration for her for her wisdom and her great virtues for teaching her.

Her students were a model of diversity because they belonged to different cultures, religions, origins and ethnicity., to whom she Hipatia transmitted a philosophical doctrine with an integrating Pythagorean spirit that did not divide her students by religion, ethnicity or any other aspect.

Sineo, a disciple of Hypatia, wrote some documents about her in which he related that she was a well-prepared woman academically and with an overwhelming personality, being corroborated by other disciples, such as Socrates Scholastic, who also confirmed what other of her disciples documented about her having a healthy and healthy appearance. attractive.

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His death

Hypatia of Alexandria she was murdered by a group of fanatics for defending paganism and rationality in the year 415her, despite having been a highly admired woman in her city.

However, she had to live some very complicated years because the end of the Roman Empire was approaching, so that there were many social, ideological and political conflicts that caused the murder of many people in addition to Hypatia.

The 5th century historian Socrates the Scholastic, recounts in one of his documents that Hypatia was murdered because of envy and resentment of her that many of her had towards her, for being a highly educated person academically and for having different ideas from her group that she murdered.

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Legacy and contributions of Hypatia

Hypatia of Alexandria is considered the first female mathematician and scientist in history. She is a symbol of ancient science because in stages close to her death there were no great advances in astronomy, physics and mathematics.

In the area of ​​mathematics, Hypatia she found a way to give original solutions for algebraic equations, developing a commentary to the "Arithmetic" of Diophantus of Alexandria, a mathematician admired by Hypatia.

Together with her father, she revised and reissued Euclid's "Elements of Geometry", an edition that is still used today.

On the other hand, Hypatia she was in charge of developing review comments about the "Almagest", the astronomical canon made by Ptolemy, where he had made several observations of the stars.

It is also documented that Hipatia dedicated part of her research work to study the curves resulting from making a complete cut in a cone through a plane at different positions and, more specifically, the circumference obtained at the moment when the plane is positioned perpendicular to the axis of the cone without passing through its vertex.

In addition, there are numerous sources that They credit Hypatia of Alexandria with being the inventor of the astrolabe, an instrument used to visualize the position of planets and stars. Such an instrument was a fundamental tool at that time, being used by scientists to observe the position of the stars. in the sky, being able to carry out investigations, and by navigators who use this device to know the course, the altitude and the time of day.

During her time, back in the 4th and 5th centuries, Hypatia was a very famous and admired woman and became consolidated as a legend among the people of the East; Nevertheless, in the West it remained forgotten over the course of several centuries.

It is not until the 18th century, thanks to some writers, such as Voltaire, John Toland, Charles Kingsley and Edward Gibbon, when there is a rescue in the memory of the West of life and his contributions to the science of Hypatia de Alexandria. Thanks to writers of that time, several brushstrokes of the biography and work of this illustrious woman were rescued, despite the fact that most of his works could not be rescued from her because they disappeared when she was killed.

Several writers, when talking about Hypatia's life, gave it a romantic touch. On the other hand, other authors, among which Voltaire stands out, were in charge of turning her into a standard bearer of her against the fanaticism that she reigned in her time and in a distinguished person of feminism and philosophy Neoplatonic.

There is no doubt that collecting information about Hypatia to develop a biography that recounts private and social life, in addition to the contributions of this illustrious woman, it has been a difficult job, because there are very few documents about her life and work, and suspects that the works that she made and were not destroyed were signed by other authors who appropriated them after their death.