My name is Rene Descartes.

I was born on 31 March 1596 and I grew up in a small town called

La Haye en Touraine. Unfortunately my mother died soon after my birth and I never got to know

her. However, my father Joachim was a capable and successful man. He was a member of the

Parliament of Brittany. I grew up with my father, my great uncle, and my grandmother. We lived

a happy life however our Roman Catholicism caused us some problems. In 1607, I attended the

Jesuit College of King Henry. This was my first introduction the studies of maths and physics. I

fell in love with these subjects and was fascinated by those who had pioneered these fields before

me. However, life had other plans for me. My father wanted me to become a lawyer and I spent

two years studying civil law at the University of Poitiers. My next foray into the fields of

mathematics came from my time in the military. I had yearned to become a military officer and

had enrolled as a mercenary under the Maurice of Nassau. This gave me an opportunity to

combine both my passions in the study of military engineering. Here I learned of Isaac Beckman

a school principal and composer. We both shared our passion for maths and worked together on

various tasks such as catenary, conic sections, and free fall. My military career also allowed to be

present for some weighty historical moments. In 1619 I entered into the service of Duke

Maximilian of Bavaria. The meant I saw the Battle of White Mountain in 1620. It seemed I had

a promising military career ahead of me, but shortly after this everything changed for me.

I was stationed in Bavaria and one day to hide from the cold sheltered alone in a room with a

warm oven. While there visions came over me. I saw that all the truths of our world were linked

together and the pursuit of science was the goal of my life. I saw revealed to me a new way to

understand geometry and fundamental mathematics. I saw a new philosophy of reason and logic.

I quickly left the army and returned to France to begin my work. I published a few essays on my
ideas but decided that I must return to my education. In the Dutch Republic I attended the

University of Franeker and the Leiden University. Here I further committed myself to my study

of mathematics and my work with Beeckman. However, unfortunately Beeckman and I had a bit

of misunderstanding. He audaciously accused me of plagiarizing some of his work and claiming

it for myself. Needless to say this damaged our relationship greatly. It was also at this time that I

had a daughter, Francine, with a servant Helena. I cared deeply for Francine and loved her

greatly. I was devastated by her death in 1640. The situation moved me to tears and I will argue

against any who says that this is not appropriate. I moved quite frequently to meet with other

scholars and visit labs however I spent much of my time in the Dutch Republic. It was in this

period that i published my most famous works The Meteors, Dioptrics, Geometry, and Discourse

of the Method. My most famous works of philosophy were Passions of the Soul and Principles of

Philosophy. I always advocated for the necessity of reason. Any ideas which can be doubted

must be cast aside and evaluated before proclaimed. But this led me to some obvious and quite

large questions. I needed a base to work from and it seemed I could be sure of nothing. After all,

how should I know that even I am real? Eventually the answer came to me, thought. My thoughts

are proof enough that I exist, I think therefor I am. From here I could build up and prove things

about the world around me. I also spent much time in my works defending my Catholic faith

from many of my atheistic peers. These works began to garner me much attention from the upper

classes of Europe. Most interestingly, I was reached out to by Queen Christina of Sweden. She

consulted me on philosophy and asked for my help in building up the scientific institutions of her

state. For those of you unfamiliar with Sweden it is not known for its mild, calm, and temperate

climate. I can assure it is anything but those things. It is cold, windy, and the weather

unpredictable. In my correspondence with Blaise Pascal we got into an argument. I took

barometric pressure readings in Stockholm using the barometer to demonstrate to my

contemporary that the device could be used to forecast the weather.

However, things were not as well in Sweden for me as I would have hoped. As I spent time with

Queen Christina it became clear we could not get along. I spent much time in her dark, dank, and

cold castle lecturing her. However, she struggled with my philosophy and argued every point

with me. I also noted she had a perverse obsession with the ancient Greeks. It would be the

weather of this harsh country that would kill me. The cold gave me pneumonia which quickly

claimed my life, I died on the 11th of February.

(GRAB MODEL OR WHITEBOARD)

Now onto the specifics on some of my most well known works. Firstly, I would call myself a

philosopher. My philosophy led me to encounter and explore mathematics, but in any case I am

most remembered for my mathematical. In fact they are so widespread and varied you likely use

them all the time without considering their origin.

First I would like to discuss how equations are written. Many of my contemporaries would come

up with or publish a formula and use choices of letters or symbols for the variables. One might

use the initials of his name while another may use some ancient symbol they appreciate or

anything that has meaning to them. This was especially frustrating when the letter or symbol they

used was also a constant created by another mathematician. This made discussing these formulae

difficult as first everyone would have to spend much time agreeing upon the variable to use. I
came up with a sleek and ingenious solution. Unknown variables being solved for would be

represented with letters from the end of the alphabet like x,y, and z. Known or measureable

quantities could be represented with the letters from the start of the alphabet: a, b and c.

Perhaps my most well known invention and most commonly used surrounds analytical geometry.

The length to which is revolutionary idea is difficult to describe. In my time it was traditional to

describe geometry as the foundation of everything. It was set at the point from which all of

mathematics originated. While it may be true that it was one of the earliest forms of complex

math, calling the foundation of mathematics is simply ludicrous. Math was being limited by the

necessity to prove every algebraic formula geometrically. I right recognized that algebra should

be the center of our mathematical system. This led me to the coordinate system and the cartesian

plane, as it has become known. I developed the idea independently but it builds upon centuries of

geometric and mathematical works since the time of the greeks. This allowed for geometry to be

defined algebraically with the use of equations to plot curves and lines. This system became the

new base for the fields of geometry and proved to be key in the advancement of physics after me.