Hypatia

Hypatia (Ancient Greek: Ὑπατία, born between about 350 and 370, died in March 415) was a Neoplatonist scholar in the late Roman Empire. She was a famous and popular female philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, astrologer and teacher at that time. She lived in Alexandria, an Egyptian district, and made great contributions to the city's intellectual community. According to later research, she had commented on Diophantus's Arithmetica, Apollonius's Conics, and Ptolemy's works, but none of them have survived. Her intellectual background can be seen from the letters written to her by her student Synesis: she belonged to the Platonic school - although we can only assume that she had adopted the teachings of Plotinus (Plotinus was a disciple of Plato in the third century AD and the founder of the Neoplatonic school). There is also some evidence that Hypatia's most famous contribution to science was the invention of the hydrometer. She was eventually tortured and killed by the mob. In 2009, Hypatia's life was adapted into the Spanish film "Gone with the Storm" and put on the screen.