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The Life Of Rene Descartes

The Life of Rene' Descartes

    Rene' Descartes was a French mathematician, philosopher and anatomist. He
contributed a great deal to modern ideas , particularly those concerned with geometry. He
was known in his time as a mechanist, because he believed that nature could be
explained through rational means, and inherent patterns could be found. During his life,
Descartes remade geometry and made modern geometry possible.
    Rene' Descartes was born on March, 31 1596 in La Haye, Touraine, which was a
former province of France. Rene' Descartes was the third child of a wealthy French
family. Because of his father's poor health, Rene' did as he pleased. At the age of eight,
Rene' was sent to a Jesuit college for formal schooling in the classics. The teacher of the
school was sensitive to Rene's health and allowed him to stay in bed until he felt ready to
attend class. Descartes used the quiet morning to think, and in later life he said they were
the real source of his mathematics and philosophy. At the age of 18, Rene' left school to
begin leading the life of a gentleman in Paris. He found partying amusing for a while.
Soon after, he joined the army and went on to fight in a war in Germany. In Germany,
Rene' had the most remarkable dream in the history of Math. He reported a number of
episodes in the dream, and one of them is usually believed to be the application of
algebra to geometry and the beginning of analytic and coordinate geometry. Descartes
remained a soldier for another 2 years and then retired to Paris.
    Until then Descartes had published nothing, but he had shared his discoveries
with others earlier. One of Descartes' friends convinced him that he had a sacred duty to
share them with the world in writing.. Soon after he went to Holland to write and think.
He spent the next 20 years roaming around Holland and working with the brightest minds
in Europe. His father was the only person who knew his whereabouts. In 1637, Rene'
Descartes' book, Le Monde, was published. A few theologians condemned his work but
nothing happened.
    Descartes was still in Holland happily gardening when, thinking and writin

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