Women scientistS in Math and Coding Making Sense of Math Math is everywhere When we think about numbers quantities and shapes in the world around From the earliest times people have counted us we are thinking about math and calculated investigated the relationships between numbers and examined forms and shapes in nature The ancient Babylonians wrote multiplication tables and geometrical exercises in around 1900 BC In the fourth century BC Plato’s Academy in Athens ancient Greece became the mathematical center of the world Euclid was an ancient Greek mathematician whose work has impact to this day This is a medieval copy of his geometry book 4
Katherine Johnson is a scientist who helped launch astronauts into space Taraji P Henson played her in the movie Hidden Figures 2016 above The work of ancient thinkers laid the foundations of math These ideas are still taught today Things really took off in the 1600s and 1700s when many brilliant mathematicians were working Isaac Newton and Gottfried Liebniz both invented theories of calculus a branch of geometry that deals with how objects move and change Some kinds of math are abstract but math always has practical applications Computer science grew out of the possibilities revealed by math Coding is writing instructions for computers and the instructions are written in mathematical language WOMEn iN Math Women have not always had the opportunity to study math but where they have they have excelled The first woman mathematician Hypatia led the world of math way back in the 300s AD Emmy Noether is considered to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all time And it was a woman Ada Lovelace who invented the first computer program 5
Women scientistS in Math and Coding Hypatia of Alexandria Hypatia is the first known woman mathematician She made great contributions to geometry and number theory and inspired future generations Hypatia was born around AD 370 in the city of Alexandria Egypt which at that time was part of the Byzantine Roman empire Alexandria was known for being a great place of learning Its library was the largest and most important in the ancient world and scholarship and philosophy were central to city life Hypatia’s father Theon was a famous Greek scholar and mathematician and the last known member of the Library of Alexandria 6
QUICK FACTS NAME Hypatia BIRTH AD c 370 Alexandria Egypt part of the Byzantine empire OCCUPATION Mathematician astronomer and philosopher EDUCATION Taught by her father Theon of Alexandria 7
