Hypatia Of Alexandria example essay topic

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all". Hypatia of Alexandria not only was a famous mathematician, astronomer, but also the first woman to make a considerable contribution to the world of mathematicians. Hypatia spent her life living up her deep passion for knowledge. Being the daughter of Theon, one of the most educated men in Alexandria, she was surrounded by knowledge from her birth. From her father she developed curiosity, inquisition, and a thirst for knowledge, which led her to her success. It has been said that her father tried to create the perfect human being in raising her.

She was taught of the different religions in the world and how to be influential with the power of words. Historians also believe that at a very young age she surpassed her father's knowledge. Theon, however, was not only concerned with the mental aspect of his daughter, but he had She became an orator, or speaker in which many students eagerly journeyed from everywhere in Europe, Asia, and Africa to hear her unique lectures. Not only was Hypatia brilliant, but also beautiful.

In, fact one of her students fell madly in love with her, and while she would not have anything to do with anyone romantically he could not give up. Some say that she played music for him and it somehow cured him of his infatuation, while others say that she showed him her own stained rags to show how not all of her was incredibly beautiful, and his love of her died. Whichever story is true, she is known to be been extraordinarily beautiful and brilliant, making her the envy of both men and woman. The exact date of her birth has been debated for centuries by historians, but it is thought to have been around 370 AD.

Many of her life's works have disappeared with the destruction of the Ptolemaic libraries in Alexandria, Egypt and also when the temple of Serapis was attacked by a mob, there are very few remnants of her work left. Hypatia's contributions to mathematics and astronomy were very important, yet because of the closure of the Greek period interest in her accomplishments dwindled. Her contributions did however include her work with conic sections, which had been introduced by Appolonius, a famous geometer of her time. This work had to do with dividing cones into different parts of a plane. This very study spurred the ideas of parabolas, ellipses and hyperbolas. By working on the important text of Apollonius she simplified many of the concepts so that they could survive for many centuries.

In her studies Hypatia developed alternate solutions to Diophantus Algebra dealing with the 1st degree and quadratic equations. Her works included A Commentary on the Arithmetic a of Diophantus, A Commentary on the Conics of Apollonius, and she edited the third book of her father's Commentary on the Almagest of Ptolemy. Although her life appears wonderful as she was fortunate enough to be beautiful and intelligent, she however wasn't Christian in a time of Christian domination. Her interest in astrology, mathematics, and music was actually interpreted by Christians into witchcraft and Satanism. Hypatia's good friend, Orestes, the civil governor despised Cyril, a leader among Christians, many people believe that Cyril organized for the mob to brutally murder Hypatia. In 415 AD a group of Christian monks seized her on the streets and barbarically beat at her, then dragged her body to a nearby church and continued to beat at her body with sharp tiles, and then buried what little remained of her.

Hypatia has been regarded as one of the most intelligent woman ever to walk the earth. Hypatia was responsible for being the only female to ever make an impact on the world of classical mathematics. After her horrible death Cyril made it so that her name would be nearly impossible to remember. He had her works destroyed, her museum destroyed, and as for himself, he was mad a saint. Her life, though, was not wasted, she contributed very much to the studies of astrology and mathematics, and was by no means lived in vain.

1.) T L Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics (2 Vols.) (Oxford, 1921)..