Hypatia of Alexandria

Summary

The first woman mathematician regarding whom we have positive knowledge is the celebrated mathematician-philosopher Hypatia. The exact date of her birth is not known, but recent studies indicate that she was born about A.D. 370 in Alexandria. This would make her about 45 years of age at her death. Hypatia, it seems, was known by two different names, or at least by two different spellings of the same name; the one, Hypatia; the other, Hyptachia. According to Meyer [6], there were two women with the same name living at about this time; Hypatia, the daughter of Theon of Alexandria; the other, the daughter of Erythrios. Hypatia's father was the well-known mathematician and astronomer Theon, a contemporary of Pappus, who lived at Alexandria during the reign of Emperor Theodosius I. Theon, the director of the Museum or University at Alexandria, is usually considered as a philosopher by his biographers.

Hypatia's biographers have given us but little of her early personal history. We know that she was reared in close touch with the Museum in Alexandria, and we are probably safe in assuming that she received the greater part of her early education from her father. If we are to judge from the records which the historians have left us, we would conclude that her early life was uneventful. It would seem that she spent the greater part of her time in study and reading with her father in the Museum.