Hypatia?

“There was a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions.”

With these words Socrates of Constantinople, also known as Socrates Scholasticus, a Greek Christian church historian born at Constantinople c. 380 [not to be confused with the greek philosopher Socrates], describes Hypatia.

Why Hypatia?

It’s Ada Lovelace day today and, as far as I don’t usually like collective celebrations, this has been a good reason for me to stop and focus on the role of women in science, and in history.

So, art and music will wait… Or maybe not? Art and music are in every story.

Hypatia of Alexandria (370 – 415 d.C.) was a keen philosopher (literally: a lover of wisdom), mathematician, astronomer (and astrologer?), and the legend tells she was not only an intellectual who excelled across disciplinary boundaries, she was also an eloquent, modest and beautiful woman.

Then, if she was more eloquent, like in Masolino

or more modest, like in Raffaello

or more beautiful, like in Charles Williams Mitchell

… it’s not really important

What really matters, in fact, is that she is the first woman known to have actively participated in an academic community, she was the last head of the philosophical school of Alexandria, and she can be considered a forerunner of experimental science.

Even if not much has survived of her original works if not quotations by other authors, Hypatia is in fact thought to be the first woman to have had a profound impact upon mathematics, simplifying Apollonius’ concepts on conics, thus the ideas of hyperbolas, parabolas, and ellipses.

Also, her contributions to geometry and astrometry (the determination of the positions and motions of stars and solar system objects and the establishment of celestial reference frames) were instrumental in developing the planesphere and the astrolabe (literally: star catcher), an astronomical device used  for understanding the position of the Sun and stars in the sky and solving problems relating to time , and a navigational instrument used until the sextant was invented in the 16^th century. It consisted of a pair of rotating discs made of open-work metal, rotating one on top of the other around a removable peg.

Hypatia astrolabe

Fully passionate of developing new ideas as much as practical technologies, she then studied and realized the first aerometer and hydroscope, instruments used for determining the specific gravity of gas and liquids.

Hydroscope

This is all great. But, as often in life, there is no ‘happy ending’. Unfortunately, Hypatia is also famous for having been murdered by Christians fanatics as “devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes, and instruments of music.”

Music? What music?

She was an intelligent and educated female, and a pagan, in an increasingly Christian environment. This is why her violent murder has been by many symbolically considered the clear beginning of the Dark Age.

Hypatia wrote:

“Fable should be taught as fable, myth as myth, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truth is horrifying. The mind of a child accepts them and only through great pain, perhaps tragedy, can the child be relieved of them. Men will fight for superstition as quickly as for the living truth — even more so, since a superstition is intangible, you can’t get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.”

And, as Lynn M. Oser in her 1974 book ‘Women in mathematics’ tell us, “at the height of her beauty, and the apex of her intellectual wisdom, having refused marriage in favor of educating her disciples, Hypatia was torn from her chariot by a hungry mob of screaming Christians. Stripping her naked, dragging her to their church, she was inhumanely butchered. Led by Peter the reader, the savage fanatics ripped her living flesh from her bones with pottery shards; the still quivering limbs then delivered to the flames.”

Music? What Music?

…

Inspirations:

My grandmother Emma, a real science lover, and my mother Laura, a real technology lover + my friends Fabrizio, a real knowledge lover, and Paolo, a real friends lover.

Quotations and references:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia

http://www.gap-system.org/~history/Biographies/Hypatia.html

http://cs-exhibitions.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php?id=337

Of course, it will never be possible. I’m so lucky I’ve been immersed in stimuli since I was so little that I don’t even remember.

But I could at least mock the list-lovers and start with some of the artists and musicians I deeply love that I contributed to promote.

This way, thanks to professional records (which are usually sharper than personal memories and definitely more limited), I could maybe manage.

Where should I start? In which order should I go?

a fragment of the Book known as the ‘Martyrology of Tallaght’, which is a 900 years old list of saints and their feast days.

I’ve spent most of my life researching, writing, selecting images, taking pics, posting, updating… My thoughts, visions and experiences are on different catalogues, websites, media and social media… But I never started my own blog.

I always thought: if my stories are all inside me and sometimes even out there, on paper or on line, fine for me… I don’t really need a blog.

But now, suddenly, I have this desire to do it myself, to create my own private media.
Ambitious? Maybe, but not more than the average project.

Then anxiety arises: will I be able to keep it focused? and will I be able to keep it fresh?
The answer is no, probably not, definitely not. Too many interesting, fascinating, entertaining things attract my attention every day. Too many. And, of course, I have too little time.

But who cares? I’ll just do it my way. Which is: an utterly elastic way.
Content will be added randomly, and topics will embrace all I am fond of: communication, creativity, art, music, fashion…

Too generic, too generic!… Some critics will say.
Is it?
With much respect to the critics… who cares?! Life is full of exciting things and times.