René Descartes

René Descartes was born in 1596 in France. He studied at the preparatory school of La Fèche and received a law degree from the University of Politiers. Although Descartes wrote many books pertaining to philosophy, physics, and science his most important was Discours de la Méthode which he published in 1637. Within this work was a 106-page essay titled La geometrie. Here, he created and outlined coordinate geometry. Coordinate geometry or Cartesian geometry revolutionized mathematical thought. Descartes approached geometric problems algebraically by placing them on a coordinate plane and thus giving points of reference. Descartes shifted the focus away from curves to their equations, thus making it possible for later mathematicians to deal with geometric figures by simply manipulating the curve’s equation. This shift allowed for the discovery of tangent lines to curves, a line that contacts the curve at only one point. In calculus, students use tangents to find the slope of the curve at a single point. He also changed the nomenclature of mathematics because he used letters near the beginning of the alphabet to represent constants and numerical subscripts to denote powers. Descartes was only the second mathematician to deal in calculus and his theories created the road upon which future mathematicians would build. For more information see this link!