How Did Hypatia Contribute To Math

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Many years ago, in 355 CE to be exact, Hypatia was born. Hypatia is one of the world’s most well known mathematicians. Especially for her time, Hypatia was extremely bright and made many important discoveries and contributions to mathematics. Hypatia’s improvements shaped mathematics, and how we see them today. Hypatia's early life, accomplishments, and effects, and end of her life, all have importance and have shaped the world in mathematics. As mentioned, Hypatia was born around 355 CE. As the daughter of the already well known mathematician, Theon of Alexandria, Hypatia was practically born into mathematics. Theon was a scholar at the University of Alexandria, Egypt. Theon being Hypatia’s father, probably caused a great deal in her own love for mathematics and sciences.“Throughout her childhood, Theon raised Hypatia in an environment of thought. Historians believe that Theon tried to raise the perfect human” (Adair, 5). Growing up with a father enriched in education on mathematics and science, had a reflection on Hapatia. …show more content…

Some historians believe she may have ever surpassed her father’s knowledge. One important impact that Hypatia had on math, was edition the on the Conics of Apollonius. The Conics of Apollonius divided cones into different parts by a plane. This concept was extremely complex, and developed the ideas of parabolas, hyperbolas, and ellipses. Though Hypatia did not originate this concept, “ With Hypatia's work on this important book, she made the concepts easier to understand, thus making the work survive through many centuries” (Adair, 19). Hypatia is also credited for editing Archimedes’ dimensions of the Circle, as well as commenting and working on Diophantus’

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