René Descartes

René Descartes was a philosopher whose work, La géométrie , includes his application of algebra to geometry from which we now have Cartesian geometry. Descartes was educated at the Jesuit college of La Fleche in Anjou. He entered the college at the age of eight years, just a few months after the opening of the college in January 1604. He studied there until 1612, studying classics, logic and traditional Aristotelian philosophy. He also learnt mathematics from …

…in 1647, when he met Pascal and argued with him that a vacuum could not exist, and then again in 1648. In 1649 Queen Christina of Sweden persuaded Descartes to go to Stockholm. However the Queen wanted to draw tangents at 5 a.m. and Descartes broke the habit of his lifetime of getting up at 11 o'clock. After only a few months in the cold northern climate, walking to the palace for 5 o'clock every morning, he died of pneumonia.