Hypatia of Alexndria (350-415 C.E.)

(350-415 C.E.) SOME HISTORIANS THINK HER DEATH HERALDED THE END OF FREE THOUGHT IN THE ANCIENT WORLD. BUT HER WORK CONTINUED TO BE STUDIED FOR OVER A THOUSAND YEARS AFTER SHE WAS MURDERED.

Letters addressed simply to "the Philosopher" were delivered to her at the Museum in Alexandria, the intellectual center of the world in the 4th C. Self-possessed and confident, she had no qualms about addressing an academy full of men. In fact, Hypatia's intellect surpassed even that her father Theon, the scholar.

Hypatia was born mid century and studied mathematics and philosophy with her father. Together they wrote an eleven part commentary on the works of the astronomer Ptolemy. She was instrumental in the refinement of the astrolabe, hydroscope, and planisphere. Hypatia studied Plato and spent her life revising the works of Euclid. Today's students can thank her for making geometry courses easier to understand.

Hypatia was a scholar who believed in science, not religion. She was caught in a power struggle between Cyril, the Bishop, and her friend Orestes, the civil governor. Inflamed by Cyril, a mob of Christian fanatics flayed her to death with broken tiles. Most of Alexandria's scholarly works were destroyed in the service of bigotry and civil war when religious authorities purged the Library and Museum. But 12 to 14 hundred years after her death Descartes, Leibniz and Newton all based their work upon Hypatia's theories. Remnants of her letters remain. Among the nuggets of blasphemy she passed on to her students are these words: "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all."

Maria "Sister of Moses" (fl. 1st. Cent. BCE)

(fl. 1st. Cent. BCE/CE) CHEMICAL ENGINEER OR ALCHEMIST? THE PROOF MAY BE IN THE PUDDING, BUT THIS 'SISTER OF MOSES' HAS A LIFE STORY AS SHROUDED IN MIST AS THE KITCHEN DEVICE NAMED FOR HER.

'Alchemy', it calls to mind a mystic in a wizard's robe distilling gold from dross. But ancient alchemy was the equivalent of modern chemical engineering, and alchemists expanded the frontiers of science. Alchemist Maria the Jewess is thought to have lived in Egypt between the first and third centuries A.D. Founding mother of Egyptian and Hellenistic alchemy, she was also honored as 'Maria the Prophetissa' and a 'Sister of Moses'.

Si Ling-Chi (c. 2640 BCE)

(c. 2640 BCE) ALMOST 5000 YEARS AGO SHE INVENTED A FABRIC AS TRANSLUCENT AS ICE AND AS LIGHT AS A CLOUD. REVEALING THE SECRET OF ITS CREATION BECAME PUNISHABLE BY DEATH.

Si Ling-Chi sat in the shade of her court garden, sipping tea beneath gracious mulberry trees. She heard a tiny rustle in the leaves above her, and the breeze suddenly dropped a white cocoon into her teacup. Instead of picking it out of her drink, she watched as the hot water began to dissolve it. Soon her tea was laced with shimmering filaments. And Si Ling-Chi imagined the luminous gown she might weave for her husband, Hoang-ti, the mythic “Yellow Emperor”. That is how Chinese tradition recounts the discovery of silk in the year 2700 BC. Si Ling-Chi went on to develop sericulture - the science of silk production. She learned to cultivate silkworms, to reel the fibers, to test it for strength and reliability, and how to weave it into garments.

Hedy Lamar 1914-2000

(1914-2000) STARLET BY DAY-INVENTOR BY NIGHT. OVER 60 YEARS AGO, THIS HOLLYWOOD GLAMOUR QUEEN PATENTED A MISSILE GUIDANCE SYSTEM THAT KEEPS YOUR CELL PHONE WORKING.

Hollywood, 1940: on the eve of World War Two, a silver screen goddess and an avant-guard composer meet at a party. Over the piano they tinker with notes in a duet. Suddenly the actress observes that they are using the changing notes to communicate. Hedy Lamar was about to make history. Back home in Austria, Lamar had been married to a prominent arms dealer. Her domineering husband threw lavish parties for fascist politicians and scientists. Hedy absorbed the details of weapons control systems, and developed an abiding hatred for the Nazis.

She fled her husband by drugging the maid he hired to guard her and escaped to London. Then it was on to Hollywood and that fortuitous piano duet with composer George Antheil. They developed 'Frequency Hopping", a kind of spread spectrum technology. They reasoned that a piano score is a way to communicate using 88 alternating notes ...or sound frequencies. With slotted paper rolls, they devised and patented a jam-proof radio control system for torpedoes, using rapid frequency changes between a synchronized transmitter and receiver. Lamar and Antheil hoped to help the war effort, so they offered their invention to the U.S. Navy. But the Navy thought it was too cumbersome to use.

The war ran its course, the patent ran out, and the inventors never made a dime. But microprocessors eventually made the idea easier to use. Our cell phones, traffic controllers, pagers and wireless internet are all based on spread spectrum technology. And the Milstar satellite communications system provides jam proof military transmissions, using an idea pioneered by Hedy Lamar- a digital girl in an analog world.