Who am I talking about? Hypatia of Alexandria, of course. In March of 415 C.E. “she was murdered by a mob of Christians” (for some strange value of “Christians”) according to a well-sourced article in Wikipedia. To see why they killed her, you should check out Isabel Thomas’s oddly titled Rimae Hypatia, a poem that inspired me to write this short post in the first place. Here are the opening lines:

In the greatest library of the ancient world
Hypatia
turned her mind to
algebra, astronomy, geometry,
examining the world from different angles.

While they jumped to conclusions,
she used careful calculation
to counter prejudice with reason.

Fortunately Ron DeSantis has never heard of Hypatia (I assume), or else he would be banning her works from all schools and libraries in Florida.

Categories: Math, Teaching & Learning