| A film based on the life of Hypatia of Alexandria. What little we know of the real Hypatia suggests that she was a talented mathematician and teacher (neither of them easy professions for a woman to enter in ancient Rome) who was later murdered by a Christian mob (either because she was a woman teacher/mathematician or because she was an activist for the right to worship the Roman pantheon of gods...it is not clear which).
The film portrays Hypatia as conducting math research, including studying the orbits of the planets around the sun which she first imagines to be circular and later realizes ought to be elliptical. It may indeed be the case that she was involved in developing mathematics. We have no direct evidence to show that she did or what it was she was working on, but it is reasonable to suppose that she was involved in this sort of research as well as teaching. However, this particular subject of research seems extremely unlikely to me. I am sure the filmmakers wished to suggest that she was a genius, far ahead of her time, but I see it as unbelievably anachronistic.
Thanks to John Konrath for suggesting this film be added to the database. |
