Hypatia

Their big question

Can numbers explain the sky?

Hypatia was the head of a school in Alexandria, in Egypt. She taught astronomy, mathematics and philosophy, and students came from all over the empire to hear her.

She wrote about how the planets move, worked on the algebra of her time, and invented tools for measuring the sky. She also insisted that you should question your teachers - including her.

In 415 CE a dangerous political fight broke out in the city, and she was caught up in it and killed by a mob. Because of that, most of her writing has been lost. What survived is her students’ memory of how she taught.

“Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.”

Being wrong on your own is more useful than being right only because someone told you.

Three things worth knowing

• She was one of the first women in history recorded as a teacher of advanced mathematics.
• She was famous for teaching at the front of the room wearing her teacher's cloak - she owned her authority.
• Her story became a symbol for everyone who is told that thinking is not for them.

Try it — think like Hypatia

Build a shadow-gnomon: stick a pencil upright in clay or dough outside, and mark its shadow at the same time every hour. At the end of the day you will have drawn a clock made of sunlight.

Hypatia Sanzio — Raphael. Source on Wikimedia Commons.