When it comes to ancient women, Hypatia isn’t just one of the most memorable names from history. Aside from being one of the most educated women in the world, she was also a contributor to the fields of philosophy and astronomy, along with mathematics. In other words, her contributions stood on their own without taking Hypatia’s gender into consideration.
After all, Pandrosion preceded Hypatia, passing down her knowledge to her student. When looking back at historical records and archaeology, Pandrosion’s life is difficult to piece together. Hypatia, by comparison, left more of a ‘paper trail’, such as the footnotes she (likely) added to Diophantus’s Arithmetica.
Still, that doesn’t mean we have a clear record of all of Hypatia’s exploits, especially during her earlier years. When looking back at the Alexandrian scholar, many remember her death, which came at the hands of zealots. It’s been well-recorded and hashed out—sometimes more than her intellectual contributions.
But experts aren’t sure when Hypatia was born. In fact, it’s become a major topic in the last two decades. As more technology emerges that makes archaeology possible, the idea is that reaching into the past will be easier. However, that hasn’t been the case with Hypatia—until recently, at least.
Using Mathematics to Date the Birth of a Mathematician
Probability theory sounds like it would have more in common with Hypatia’s interests than how she died. However, Italian scholars Lucio Russo, Stefano Isola, and Canio Benedetto of the University of Tor Vergata proposed a new approach back in 2018. The mathematicians decided that probability theory could be used to determine likely birth years.
Probability theory is a mathematical framework that explores how likely a certain outcome is in a given situation. Depending on the known and unknown variables at play, that probability will shift—and even the average person is relating to probability theory in some way.
For example, probability theory is a huge part of modern gaming. A favorite for online casino players is roulette, which is usually offered in a variety of styles like American and European Roulette. Roulette players regularly use probabilities to inform how they deal with the game’s elements of chance. In fact, the roulette wheel was invented by French mathematician Blaise Pascal back in the mid-17th century.
Its 36 potential slots create a satisfying puzzle for the mathematically inclined. But even those who don’t have an interest in roulette are still interacting with probability theory. For example, meteorologists at the World Climate Service use mathematical models based on probability to make their predictions about the weather. Though less exciting than the roulette wheel, the forecast requires plenty of mathematics, too.
So, how is probability theory determining Hypatia’s birth year?
Assigning Probability to History
Scholars at the University of Tor Vergata decided to approach probability in a new way to date Hypatia’s birth. Rather than use a ‘frequentist’ approach, which focuses on the probability of an event in correlation to the total number of possibilities, they opted for probability based on opinion and other records.
In other words, they collected all known statements and testaments on Hypatia’s birth, then created a web based on temporal constraints. Each record was independently scrutinized in order to determine its accuracy in the form of a probability. When each record had been assigned its own probable reliability, they were combined to find a single computation of probability.
Based on all the input, the mathematical program designed by Russo, Isola, and Benedetto landed on the year 355 CE for Hypatia’s birth with a 90% security of birth between 350 and 360 CE. This deviates from the mainstream date accepted by most scholars, which is around 370. Instead of being around 75 years old at the time of her birth, Hypatia was likely only 60.
A New Approach for Scholars
This new method of probability-based dating could have huge effects for scholars facing similarly murky records. Previously, advancements in radiocarbon dating have been received as a fix-all… but radiocarbon dating, along with ceramic tomography and dendrochronology also came up short.
Going forward, could a probability-based model be a sufficient approach for scholars struggling to date historic events?