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“An excel­lent biog­ra­phy of one of the more intrigu­ing char­ac­ters from ancient his­to­ry. As a math­e­mati­cian, Hypa­ti­a’s con­tri­bu­tions to wis­dom — espe­cial­ly in that remark­able cen­tre of learn­ing that was Alexan­dria — were many and var­ied. Here, in this splen­did biog­ra­phy, Gabrielle Bir­chak looks at the many strands of her life along with all the intrigue, mys­tery and pol­i­tics of the time. A first rate book on a lit­tle known figure.” 

- Nicholas Booth, author of The Search for Life on Mars and The Thieves of Thread­nee­dle Street

Near my birth­day I was gift­ed a new book by Gabrielle Bir­chak, Hypa­tia, The Sum of Her Life, about the ancient Greek math­e­mati­cian. Not know­ing any­thing about Hypa­tia I find myself in the same boat as the time-trav­el­er in a sketch on Ben Stiller’s TV series from the ear­ly 90s: an aver­age his­to­ry stu­dent finds her­self back in time but is unable to help Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton fight the British because all she can remem­ber is he crossed the Delaware. 

The good news is I have no pre­con­ceived ideas about Hypa­tia. The only thing I know about her is that she was mur­dered. It adds a sense of urgency to her sto­ry, like know­ing Galois doesn’t sur­vive the duel. The heroine’s sto­ry is what inter­ests me the most, and Bir­chak builds up to Hypatia’s era by illus­trat­ing the impor­tant place math­e­mat­ics holds in human his­to­ry. Our old­est exist­ing writ­ings, on clay and papyrus, con­cern math­e­mat­ics, either astro­nom­i­cal or finan­cial, and the intro­duc­tion high­lights the impor­tance of sci­ence, phi­los­o­phy and math­e­mat­ics in our history.

I do know a lot about math, so I’m hop­ing to learn about Hypatia’s work. Birchak’s book is intend­ed for numer­ous audi­ences, lit­er­ary, aca­d­e­m­ic and pop­u­lar. Every author would like their book to be equal­ly enjoyed by all groups but this book sig­nals those less inter­est­ed in the deep math with a huge Corinthi­an col­umn on pages they can skip, where things might get con­fus­ing, like the chap­ter where Archimedes cal­cu­lat­ing pi using a 96-sided poly­gon. Skip­ping these sec­tions won’t deter from Hypatia’s story.

None of Hypatia’s works have sur­vived to the present day, so the book makes much of the best known math­e­mati­cians like Ptole­my, Dio­phan­tus and Euclid, whose works were tran­scribed, pre­served and expand­ed by Alexan­dri­an schol­ars like Hypa­tia and her father Theon. Hypatia’s lega­cy is her school of phi­los­o­phy, sci­ence and math­e­mat­ics. Bir­chak puts the read­er in the mid­dle of the polit­i­cal tur­moil of Hypatia’s Alexan­dria and con­vinces us of the impor­tance of devel­op­ing and pre­serv­ing sci­en­tif­ic and math­e­mat­i­cal knowledge.

The math­e­mat­ics in the book is an excel­lent, approach­able intro­duc­tion to base sys­tems, the Greek num­ber sys­tem (their alpha­bet), the aba­cus (for cal­cu­lat­ing frac­tions!) and the math and tech­nol­o­gy used in astron­o­my. The sec­tion on Dio­phan­tine equa­tions shows how dif­fer­ent his word prob­lems were from the sym­bol­ic equa­tions we’re famil­iar with. 

The great­est dis­cov­ery for me was the col­lab­o­ra­tive nature of math and sci­ence in ancient times as opposed to the com­mon idea of the sage writ­ing his book in soli­tude. Every chap­ter illus­trates the rich tra­di­tion of writ­ing com­men­taries on known works, as Hypa­tia and Theon did for many clas­sic math­e­mat­i­cal trea­tis­es like Ptolemy’s Almagest and Appolo­nius’ Con­ics. The spir­it of dis­cov­ery, the devel­op­ment of ideas, the teach­ing to the next gen­er­a­tion and the preser­va­tion of knowl­edge are described in vivid detail through­out the book. We come away with a new­found respect for the trans­la­tors, Arab and Euro­pean, whose efforts made the knowl­edge of their time avail­able to us today.

The book is also a ter­rif­ic his­to­ry les­son, describ­ing the com­pli­cat­ed pow­er strug­gle between Alexandria’s polit­i­cal and reli­gious fac­tions, which have (for me) trou­bling par­al­lels in our time. The reli­gious takeover of edu­ca­tion in the time of “iron-fist­ed pope” Cyril meant the end was near for the Pagan aca­d­e­m­ic Hypa­tia, who brave­ly taught stu­dents from all polit­i­cal, reli­gious and eco­nom­ic groups.

After read­ing the book, the read­er is no longer in the same boat as the bad his­to­ry stu­dent meet­ing Wash­ing­ton. We’ve met Hypa­tia, her father, her stu­dents, her polit­i­cal rivals, and the genius­es of sci­ence and math­e­mat­ics whose work she died try­ing to pre­serve and pass on. 

 Peter Far­rell, author of Math Adven­tures with Python and Hack­ing Math Class with Python

She was bru­tal­ly skinned to death, dis­mem­bered, and then burned to ashes.

She was a revered and trea­sured Roman cit­i­zen of Alexan­dria. Yet, that one spring evening dur­ing Lent in March 415, the events of her death fore­told Alexandria’s dark future and pre­car­i­ous des­tiny for acad­e­mia. Even today, many still dis­pute the archi­tect of her assassination.

Hypa­tia: The Sum of Her Life is Hypatia’s com­plete story.

Hypa­tia embod­ied the sum total of her thoughts. Noble forms and wor­thy pur­pos­es gave way to Hypatia’s cher­ished philoso­phies and teach­ings.

Hypa­tia embraced the knowl­edge of her aca­d­e­m­ic pre­de­ces­sors. In turn, she fear­less­ly shared her wis­dom with the peo­ple of Alexan­dria. Her prin­ci­ples became Alexandria’s cur­ren­cy as her dis­ci­ple­ship grew. Fur­ther­more, her math­e­mat­ics left a promi­nent imprint on the trans­la­tions that influ­ence edu­ca­tion today.

Hypa­tia became known and respect­ed across Rome by lead­ers who sought out her advice. She built a suc­cess­ful work­ing rela­tion­ship with the Pope of Alexan­dria. She inspired her dis­ci­ples to become remark­able lead­ers and intel­lec­tu­als at the fore­front of the Roman Empire’s decline. Still, her suc­cess seed­ed jeal­ousy in one promi­nent church leader.

If you like David Rowe’s Emmy Noe­ther, Mar­i­lyn Bai­ley Ogilvie’s Marie Curie, Ruth Lewin Sime’s Lise Meit­ner: A Life in Physics, and Yurie Ignatieff’s The Math­e­mat­i­cal World of Wal­ter Noll, then dis­cov­er Hypa­tia, her world, and her math­e­mat­ics in Hypa­tia: The Sum of Her Life.

She was bru­tal­ly skinned to death, dis­mem­bered, and then burned to ashes.

Dis­cov­er the remark­able sto­ry of Hypa­tia of Alexan­dria, a beloved and revered Roman cit­i­zen who was bru­tal­ly skinned to death and dis­mem­bered in 415 AD. Nonethe­less, in this true sto­ry, the account of her life is more than just the nar­ra­tive of her grue­some murder.

In Hypa­tia: The Sum of Her Life, learn how her noble forms, wor­thy pur­pos­es, and trea­sured philoso­phies and teach­ings made her a revered leader, respect­ed across Rome by lead­ers who sought out her advice. She built a suc­cess­ful work­ing rela­tion­ship with the Pope Theophilus. She inspired her dis­ci­ples to become remark­able lead­ers and intel­lec­tu­als at the fore­front of the Roman Empire’s decline.

Read of her remark­able suc­cess and the jeal­ousy it seed­ed in one promi­nent church leader. See how her math­e­mat­ics left a promi­nent imprint on the trans­la­tions that influ­ence edu­ca­tion today.

Hypatia’s leg­end is the sum of who she authen­ti­cal­ly por­trayed: a daugh­ter, a pro­fes­sor, a philoso­pher, a math­e­mati­cian, an astronomer, a polit­i­cal advi­sor, and a leader. For women, Hypa­tia is one of the first to walk that faint trail that forged the road for women in acad­e­mia, sci­ence, math­e­mat­ics, and philosophy.

Enjoy this true sto­ry of Hypa­ti­a’s life and dis­cov­er how her lega­cy lives on today. If you enjoyed David Rowe’s Emmy Noe­ther, Mar­i­lyn Bai­ley Ogilvie’s Marie Curie, Ruth Lewin Sime’s Lise Meit­ner: A Life in Physics, and Yurie Ignatieff’s The Math­e­mat­i­cal World of Wal­ter Noll, then you’ll love Hypa­tia: The Sum of Her Life.

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