Math History with Rene Descartes

1. Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes and
philosophy
Click the link to watch a
short video.

2.  Born March 31, 1596 in La Haye, France
 Never got out of bed before 11 in the morning!
 It is said he came up with the idea for his
coordinate system while lying in bed and
watching a fly crawl on the ceiling of his room
 Entered college at the age of 8 and stayed there
for 8 years
 His small toe was bitten completely off by a cat
when he was four years old
 He invented superscripts

3.  Modern Father of Philosophy
 His approach was to clear everything off the table,
all preconceived and inherited notions and start
fresh by putting back one by one the things that
were certain
 Mathematics
 Cartesian Geometry
 Rectangular Coordinate System
 Laws of Refraction led to understanding of rainbows

4.  Developed ways to find the zeros (roots) of
polynomial functions

5.  "Cogito ergo sum." (I think, therefore, i am.)
 "An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why
must the pessimist always run to blow it out?"
 "Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and
necessary to resolve it."
 "Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served
afterward to solve other problems."
 "Everything is self-evident. "
 "I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the
same things that lunatics imagine when awake."
 "It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to
use it well."
 "Perfect numbers, like perfect men, are hard to find. "
 "Few people have sufficiently prepared themselves for all
the contingencies of life."