I’m planning to write a series of posts about scientists and their contributions to the world as I learn and discover their information. I will be using internet for my discovery process and all information I gather will be from there.

For my first post in this series, I picked René Descartes one of the famous 17th century French mathematician and a philosopher.

René Descartes , the father of analytical geometry, revolutionized mathematics by inventing Cartesian Coordinate System and providing the first systematic link between Euclidean geometry and algebra. Using Cartesian coordinates all geometric shapes can be represented as an algebraic equation. Cartesian Coordinate System is the foundation for several branches of mathematics including calculus. It is also essential foundation for related disciplines like physics, astronomy, engineering and basically anything that is related to geometry including computer graphics. His work is also a basis that we are able to use mathematics in the study of physics.

René Descartes is also considered the father of modern philosophy. “I think, therefore I am “ is the best known philosophical statement of his.

He believed in enlightenment theory or rationalism which is reasoning based on facts to understand the world around us . American and French revolutions , science and math are based on Enlightenment theory.

He also knew earth is not the center of the universe and Earth revolves around the sun., which Galileo disagreed with.

Take away is that Descartes has laid the foundation for many of the streams of mathematics , science and physics as well as technology that we use and rely on today . Making us all use reasoning is my favorite.