Pandrosion of Alexandria (Ancient Greek:Πανδροσίων) was a mathematician in fourth-century-ADAlexandria, discussed in theMathematical Collection ofPappus of Alexandria and known for having possibly developed an approximate method fordoubling the cube. She is likely the earliest known female mathematician.
Pappus dedicated a section of hisCollection to correcting what he perceives as errors in Pandrosion's students.[1][2]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 ofdoubling the cube, or more generally of calculatingcube roots. It is a "recursive geometric" solution, but three-dimensional rather than working within the plane.[1] Pappus criticized this work as lacking a propermathematical proof.[1][3][2] 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 thegeometric mean, simpler than the method used by Pappus.[1][4]
The name Pandrosion is adiminutive ofPandrosos, 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".[5]
WhenFriedrich Hultsch prepared his 1878 translation of Pappus'sCollection from Greek into Latin, the manuscript of theCollection 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.[3][6] However, the 1988 English translation of Pappus by Alexander Raymond Jones "argued convincingly" that the original feminine form was not a mistake,[1] and more recent scholarship has followed Jones in taking the position that Pandrosion was a woman.[2][5][7][8][9]
Hypatia 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.[3] 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.[4]
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