Pandrosion of Alexandria () was a mathematician in fourth-century-AD

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

, discussed in the ''Mathematical Collection'' of

Pappus of Alexandria Pappus of Alexandria (; ; AD) was a Greek mathematics, Greek mathematician of late antiquity known for his ''Synagoge'' (Συναγωγή) or ''Collection'' (), and for Pappus's hexagon theorem in projective geometry. Almost nothing is known a ...

and known for having possibly developed an approximate method for

doubling the cube Doubling the cube, also known as the Delian problem, is an ancient geometry, geometric problem. Given the Edge (geometry), edge of a cube, the problem requires the construction of the edge of a second cube whose volume is double that of the first ...

. She is likely the earliest known female mathematician.

Contributions

Pappus dedicated a section of his ''Collection'' to correcting what he perceives as errors in Pandrosion's students. Although Pappus does not directly state that the method is Pandrosion's, he includes in this section a method for calculating numerically accurate but approximate solutions to the problem of

, or more generally of calculating

cube root In mathematics, a cube root of a number is a number that has the given number as its third power; that is y^3=x. The number of cube roots of a number depends on the number system that is considered. Every real number has exactly one real cub ...

s. It is a "recursive geometric" solution, but three-dimensional rather than working within the plane. Pappus criticized this work as lacking a proper

mathematical proof A mathematical proof is a deductive reasoning, deductive Argument-deduction-proof distinctions, argument for a Proposition, mathematical statement, showing that the stated assumptions logically guarantee the conclusion. The argument may use othe ...

. Another method included in the same section, and potentially attributable in the same way indirectly to Pandrosion, is a correct and exact method for constructing the

geometric mean In mathematics, the geometric mean is a mean or average which indicates a central tendency of a finite collection of positive real numbers by using the product of their values (as opposed to the arithmetic mean which uses their sum). The geometri ...

, simpler than the method used by Pappus.

Name and gender

The name Pandrosion is a

diminutive A diminutive is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle s ...

of Pandrosos, the name of a daughter of the first king of Athens; it means "all-dewy". As such, it has been described as "not likely as a man's name". When

Friedrich Hultsch Friedrich Otto Hultsch (22 July 1833, Dresden – 6 April 1906, Dresden) was a German classical philologist and historian of mathematics in antiquity. Biography After graduating from the Dresden '' Kreuzschule'', Friedrich Hultsch studied classic ...

prepared his 1878 translation of Pappus's ''Collection'' from Greek into Latin, the manuscript of the ''Collection'' that he used referred to Pandrosion using a feminine form of address. Hultsch decided that this must have been a mistake, and referred to Pandrosion as masculine in his translation. However, the 1988 English translation of Pappus by Alexander Raymond Jones "argued convincingly" that the original feminine form was not a mistake, and more recent scholarship has followed Jones in taking the position that Pandrosion was a woman.

Hypatia Hypatia (born 350–370 – March 415 AD) was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who lived in Alexandria, Egypt (Roman province), Egypt: at that time a major city of the Eastern Roman Empire. In Alexandria, Hypatia was ...

has often been called the first woman to have contributed to mathematics, but Pappus died before the earliest suggested birth date of Hypatia. Therefore, Pandrosion is a likely candidate for an earlier female contributor to mathematics than Hypatia. Pandrosion was also described by Pappus as a teacher of mathematics, and although Pappus recorded only men among her students, Edward J. Watts suggests that Hypatia may have known of, or even known, Pandrosion.

References

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