INSIDE ANCIENT ALEXANDRIAN SCIENCE

Hypatia, Alexandrian Academy of Science, Alexandria, Egypt; hypatia@gmail.com

Introduction

Making a career as a philosopher during the late Roman Empire was not easy for anyone, particularly for a woman, and yet I managed it ():

Her endowments, and progress in every branch of learning and knowledge, is established by the concurrent testimony of a crowd of contemporary writers, both civil and ecclesiastical, by whom she is said to have surpassed her father in astronomical skill, …

Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy, even as the daughter of a mathematician, to find the time and space to study Euclid (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Fragment of Euclid’s Elements on Oxyrhynchus papyri.

About the Author

Hypatia was a mathematician and astronomer in Alexandria at the turn of the fourth century of the Christian Era.

References and Notes

.	A. M. Lee, , Memoirs of Eminent Female Writers, of All Ages and Countries, Grigg, Philadelphia, PA, 1827, p 78.