2. DESCRIPTION OF THE MOVIE
• Spanish-English language historical drama film
• A production of 2009
• Directed by Alejandro Amenábar
• Written by Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil
• Starring Rachel Weisz – as Hypatia – , Max Minghella –as Davus
,Hypatia’s slave, Oscar Isaac – as Orestes, Hypatia’s student and
later perfect of Alexandria.
VIDEO: 1.trailer
3. PLOT
In Alexandria, 391 AD, Hypatia, a young Greek female philosopher teaches
mathematics, astronomy and philosophy at the Library of Alexandria.
Her personal slave, Davus, is in love with her but he keeps his love secret.
Meanwhile, Pagans and Christians in the city come into harsh conflict. A battle
begins between the two mobs and the Pagans find themselves outnumbered
by the Christians.
Davus, then, chooses to join the Christian forces and gain his freedom over his
love and dedication to Hypatia.
The result of the battle is the destruction of the Library by the Christians.
Several years later, Hypatia continues researching the motions of the Sun, the
Moon, the five known "wanderers" (planets) and the stars.
She makes a personal discovery, theorizing that the Earth’s orbit around the
Sun is an elliptic one, not circular.
Then, the leader of Christians, Cyril, convinces the masses that she is a witch.
The Christian mob catches her, while Davus tries to inform her about
Christians’ wills.
Finally, she is being killed by Christians, who decide to stone kill her.
However, Davus suffocates her in order not to feel the pain and then lies that
she fainted.
7. GENERAL INFORMATION
• Born in 355/370 AD in
Alexandria
• Studied in Athens
• Greek mathematician,
astronomer, and
philosopher
• Nothing of her writings
is saved
8. HYPATIA IN HER TIME
• world’s leading mathematician and astronomer
–the only woman-
• popular teacher and lecturer on philosophical
topics
• Neoplatonist philosophy due to which was t
seen as “pagan”
VIDEO: 2.Library
3.Belief
9. HYPATIA’S WORK
• She studied many scientific topics, including the
movements of the planets, our solar system,
the orbit of Earth and the conic sections
• She made the important discovery that the
orbit of Earth is elliptical and not cyclical and
she confirmed Aristarchus's theory that the
Earth revolves around the Sun
VIDEO: 4. Experiment
5. Discovery
10. HYPATIA’S DEATH
• she was murdered by
Christian zealots who
kidnapped her and leaded
her to Caesareum church,
where they took her clothes
off and then killed her with
tiles and burned her corpse
• She remained in History as a
powerful feminist symbol
VIDEO: 6.DEATH 7
.DOCUMENTARY
11. ANCIENT GREEK MATHEMATICIANS
AND ASTRONOMERS
In the movie, Hypatia refers to some famous
ancient Greek mathematicians and
astronomers, who made important
discoveries and conclusions over
astronomical and mathematical issues.
12. Aristarchus of Samos (310 B.C. - 230 B.C.)
• Astronomer
• Maintained that the Earth
rotates on its axis and
revolves around the Sun
• His work on the motion of
Earth has not survived
• His ideas are known from
references by other ancient
Greek mathematicians,
biographers and
philosophers
VIDEO: 8.Aristarchus
13. Euclid (325 B.C. - 265 B.C.)
• Mathematician
• Often called the “Father of
Geometry”
• Acted in Alexandria, like Hypatia
did
• His work, Elements, consists of 13
books
• It is one of the greatest works
about Mathematics
• He came up with the principles,
that are now called Euclidean
geometry
• His works also included number
theory, spherical geometry, conic
sections, and perspective.
14. Ptolemy (100 A.D. - 170 A.D.)
• Egyptian astronomer,
mathematician, and
geographer of Greek descent
• Flourished in Alexandria, like
Hypatia did
• His writings represent the
most important achievements
of Greco-Roman science
• One of them was his
geocentric (Earth-centered)
model of the universe now
known as the Ptolemaic
system
VIDEO: 9.Ptolemy
15. MATHEMATICAL – ASTRONOMICAL
SUBJECT
• The movie’s basic
mathematical subject
seems to be the solar
system , Earth’s orbit
and how the Earth
revolves around the
Sun.
16. SOLAR SYSTEM
Hypatia based her work and research
about the solar system on the Ptolemaic
system and Aristarchus’s solar system
model.
17. The Ptolemaic System
• Mathematical model of
the universe
• Formulated by the
Alexandrian astronomer
and mathematician
Ptolemy
• It is a geocentric
cosmology: it starts by
assuming that the Earth
is stationary and at the
centre of the universe
18. • Ptolemy combined eccentricity with an epicyclical
model. In the Ptolemaic system
each planet revolves uniformly along a circular path
(epicycle), the centre of which revolves around the
Earth along a larger circular path (deferent).
• He imagined a small circle (the epicycle) rotating on
a large circle (the deferent). The planet was fixed to
the epicycle. (Figure 3).
• As the epicycle moved round the deferent there
would be times (such as A to B) when the planet
seemed to be moving backwards when seen from
the Earth.
• This fitted the observations until slightly more
accurate measurements were made and this meant
that Ptolemy had to add another epicycle on the
first epicycle to get the correct planetary
movement.
VIDEO: 10.Geocentric
Ptolemaic solar system 150 CE to middle ages
10.Ptolemy's Solar Hypotheses
11.PTOLEMAIC SYSTEM
19. Aristarchus’s solar system model
• Aristarchus managed to place
the Sun in the middle of the
solar system and he also
placed the planets in the
right order from the Sun.
• He gave a model of the
universe with a stationary
Sun and planets rotating in
circular orbits around the
Sun. The stars, which are
actually stationary, seemed
to be rotating because the
Earth rotates on its own axis.
VIDEO: 12. Aristarchus Theory
21. Conic Sections
• A conic section is the curve
that is formed from the
intersection of a plane cone
and a double-napped cone
• The four important conic
sections are:
1) Circle
2) Ellipse
3) Parabola
4) Hyperbola
22. The Apollonian Cone
• First introduced by the ancient Greek
mathematician Apollonius of Perga
• It is used for the illustration of the
conic sections:
An horizontal slice reveals the circle
A slanted horizontal slice reveals the
ellipse
A slanted vertical cut reveals the
parabola
A straight vertical cut reveals the
hyperbola
VIDEO: 13.Apollonian cone
23. Circle
• It is a 2-dimensional shape made by drawing a
curve that is always the same distance from a
center
24. Ellipse
• It is the set of all points on a plane whose
distances from two fixed points F and G add
up to a constant
• In fact, the circle itself is a special kind of
ellipse
25. GEOGEBRA (ELLIPSE)
• http://ggbtu.be/m2659309
• Definition of the geometrical shape of the
ellipse: http://ggbtu.be/m2659327
• http://ggbtu.be/m2659387
• Does the eccenentricity determine the form of
the ellipse? http://ggbtu.be/m2659409
• http://ggbtu.be/m2659419
26. Parabola
• It is a curve where any point is at an equal
distance from:
a fixed point (the focus)
a fixed straight line (the directrix )
28. Hyperbola
• A hyperbola is a curve where the distances of
any point from:
a fixed point (the focus)
a fixed straight line (the directrix)
are always in the same ratio
29. How understandable is the
mathematical subject?
• Viewers easily understand the struggle of Hypatia
to comprehend and interpret the Earth’s motion.
• They are unfamiliar with the obstacles, though,
that Hypatia is to confront.
• Both Ptolemy’s and Aristarchus solar system
models are fully analysed in the movie.
• Circle, ellipse: they are mathematical terms
understandable, as mentioned repeatidly.
• The movie through the adventurous and trubulent
life of Hypatia makes the viewers understand not
only models of the solar system depicted but also
the laws on which they were based on.
30. How interesting was the movie over
the mathematical subject?
• Interesting and motivational movie.
• Through Hypatia’s eyes the viewer gets to know
how the elevation of research of the Solar system
escalated and basic theories about it.
• The difficulties that Hypatia meets over her
reaserch due to the turbulent era she lives makes
the viewers sit on the edge of their seats.
• What really makes it interesting is the fact that
something that today is taken for granted was in
the era depicted in the movie a marvelous
mystery!
31. What did the movie teach us?
The mathematical part
• Who Hypatia the philosopher was.
• Astronomy congents on mathematics, especially
geometry.
• How ancient Greek mathematicians contributed to
basic geometry theories.
• Circle is the most perfect of the shapes.
• Circle, ellipse, hyperbola, parabola meet in the
Apollonian cone.
• Former solar system theories were based on circle.
• The Earth revolves around the Sun elliptically.
• Mathematics is not just a science, but a way of
thinking, but also exploring and interpreting the world
and universe.
32. What did the movie teach us?
Beyond Maths
• Hypatia was a powerful feminist symbol and
an extraordinary sceptic.
• Alexandrian museum and all the books saved
in it were destroyed due to religious conflict.
• Logic and mathematics (*philosophy*) are the
only trustworthy tools to draw conclusions.
33. Where can we apply this knowledge?
• In understanding the world, how the solar
system is built.
• By learning the history of the development of
astronomy, we get to understand better the
laws of the universe.
• We become curious about the universe.
• We reach the point of accepting logic and
science as the only trustworthy tools for any
kind of conclusion in our lives!
