She is thought to have written commentaries on Diophantus's Arithmetica and the Conics of Appollonius, texts on mathematics and grammar, respectively, and assisted her father in revising Euclid's Elements, the oldest surviving Greek mathematical work. Hypatia's edition of the Elements is used today. Today, such devices are used to check a car battery's charge by testing the acid. Hypatia ran afoul of Christian zealots, who believed science and mathematics were enemies of their religion. In 415, according to historians, a group including monks from the Church of St. Cyril dragged Hypatia into a church and murdered her.
Scholars say the murder signified the end of Platonic teaching in Alexandria and the Roman Empire.
Interest in mysticism and astrology soon replaced scientific research and reasoning that Plato, and neo-Platonists such as Hypatia, had espoused. Even King George I praised her invention as having played an important role in developing the Pennsylvania economy. But, in a classic demonstration of the bias against women inventors, the crown issued the patent in the name of her husband, Thomas. It would be almost a century before an American woman would be recognized as an inventor in her own right. Straw and silk weaving The first patent granted to a woman by the U.S. Patent Office was given in 1809 to Kies, of Connecticut, for a method of weaving straw with silk.