The Murder that Shocked an Empire

Mathematics in the ancient World: Classical Wisdom Litterae

Dear Classical Wisdom Members,

One of my big beefs with the modern world is that we love to put things into boxes. I’m not talking about Marie Kondo’s organizational skills (though we all clearly love that as well), I mean the tendency to categorize, separate, put anything and everything into silos. We do it at every turn and often to our detriment. 

Whether it’s identity, culture, race, religion, geography, history, or ideas, it’s as if we all took our high school biology class dedicated to Carl Linnaeus a little too far and try to cut neat little lines where lines don’t exist. 

Lines, the cutting and measuring of, belong in MATH. Right?

Well, in the ancient world such ‘divisions’ did not exist. Math blended with art, which blended with religion, which blended with philosophy, which blended with living a good life. 

Nowadays you may easily hear a student of the humanities admit, “they aren’t good at math”... or that “math doesn’t really matter for them”... but to this Plato and Aristotle and his cohorts would have been taken aback, nay shocked and horrified. 

Legend has it (unverified and written 700 years after the fact) that the words above the entrance to Plato’s Academy were: "May no ignorant of Geometry enter here."

If that seems odd to you, it’s important again to remember that math and geometry were not considered separate fields of study. In fact, the word Math itself comes from the Greek μάθημα, máthēma, which means "knowledge, study, learning".

They believed math was a method to understand the fundamental questions, such as: what is life? The universe? How is it structured? What is ‘stuff’ made out of? 

Aristotle doubles down on this by saying:

“Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.” 

- Book XIII, 1078.a33, Aristotle

So with that in mind, Classical Wisdom Members can enjoy this issue of our Classical Wisdom Litterae Magazine dedicated to Math, below.

It follows loosely the history of Mathematics and the important mathematicians who made contributions along the way. As such, we start with the earliest known mathematician, who, not so coincidentally, is also considered the first of the seven sages of ancient Greece and the first philosopher of the Greek tradition...Thales of Miletus... you may remember him from Monday’s Thales Eclipse! 

From there we proceed to Pythagoras, Zeno of Elea, Euclid, Archimedes and finish with the tragic heroine, mathematician and famed female astronomer, Hypatia, whose murder shocked an empire and transformed her into a “martyr of Philosophy.”

While her horrific and violent death has overshadowed her work, she certainly deserves a moment of appreciation for her considerable contributions… and we will do just that today!

So, please forget the stresses of your high school calculus class and open your mind to the beginnings of a new way of thinking and seeing the world....get ready to have your mathematical mind blown.

All the best,

Anya Leonard
Founder and Director

Classical Wisdom

NB: Members: you can enjoy the full Classical Wisdom Litterae Magazine issue below the article for a look at ancient numbers, Thales, Pythagoras as well as the impressive life and brutal death of Hypatia. 

The Brutal Death... and Impressive Life of Hypatia

By Anya Leonard

Our last mathematician is perhaps more known for her death than her work. She is part of the honorable group of brilliant minds tragically murdered too early (Archimedes and Socrates, of course, are notable members). As such, Hypatia is often regarded as a martyr of female intellectuals and a tragic heroine. 

But before we get to her death, perhaps we should start with her life...