"What is and what is not": the dream of René Descartes who revolutionized mathematics



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But for centuries it was a world that followed the rules of God and the Church.

In the 17th century, a new generation of intellectuals emerged without fear of defying authority.

There was a man who dared to question all previous philosophical and scientific badumptions.

It was someone who was trying to promote a new way of thinking using reason, experimentation, and observation .

This was a Frenchman called René Descartes

  Engraving of René Descartes writing his world system of Desfontaines

He is considered the father of badytical geometry and modern philosophy, as well as the l 39; a precursor of the scientific revolution

He was born in 1596 in France. and died in 1650. Between those years, he was mercenary in the army of the Dutch Protestant states, traveler, student, mathematician and philosopher.

At the age of 22 [196590]. 10] One night in 1619, while he was sleeping, Descartes had a series of dreams that would change his life and mathematics.

The first two types of nightmares could be called nightmares.

But the third dream … was intriguing .

  René Descartes

Young Dreamer

When his eyes scanned the room, he saw books on the table in the room that looked and then disappeared.

He opened a book of poems and at random he saw the first line of it which said in Latin: " Quod vitae sectabor iter ": " Which way am I going to follow in life? "

Then some appeared out of the nothing and recited another verse by simply saying," Is and not ":" That's all. what is and is not "

  Renato's Book of Cards

There are dreams that change the world

With dreams, everything depends on the world. interpretation that you give them. In the case of Descartes, the effect was profound.

He was convinced that they indicated a direction: a science had to be established that encompbaded all human wisdom based on reason.

After this night of little rest, Descartes would formulate badytical geometry and the idea of ​​applying the mathematical method to philosophy .

Is and No

The question "What is and what is not" opened your eyes to true nature

From From this moment, Descartes questions all that he has seen, trying to separate the true from the false.

From the question " Is there anything I know of what I am sure of?" . "

He knew that he could not rely on any evidence based on his senses, as they sometimes deceived him: a right stick seemed crooked if the spirit was in a glbad of water.

  Roses in a glbad vase with water.

If we trust what we see, we would laugh that the stalks of the flowers crack when they enter the water and come back together when they are taken out of the vase

And sometimes, when it was asleep, he dreamed that he had woken up … How could he be sure he would not?

Even though he had truths as 2 + 5 = 7, even in dreams.

However, even he, a mathematician, could not claim absolute certainty, what about the demonic demon controlling his thoughts, manipulating them so that whenever he adds, he commits a fundamental error?

He would live in a whirlwind of doubts.

  In his dream, Descartes

His salvation was to realize that even if this demon existed, he could not deceive him about his own existence.

" I immediately noticed that this way, I wanted to think that everything was wrong it was necessary for me, who thought it, to become something ", writes -he.

"" And noting that this truth: I think, for I am so firm and certain that neither the most extravagant badumptions of the skeptics could break it, I judged that I could admit it, without scruple, as the first principle of philosophy that I sought "

Every thought, no matter how reliable, proved that it existed as an entity

This is his famous argument: "I think, so I am" frequently translated by "I think then I am" -, become fundamental to the rational western mo como " Cogito ergo sum "

  The thinker of Rodin

The most beautiful thinker who exists

Quod vitae sectabor iter?

The question "Which way will you follow in your life? "Of course it's profound and difficult to answer, especially when you're 22, like Descartes that night, you saw it in a dream."

But if you lower it a little on Earth and you do it with regard to daily activities, you may be surprised that it was Descartes' genius who simplified the search for the answer.

And, by the way, that led to one of the greatest advances in the field of mathematics

As for so many brilliant ideas, it is falsely simple 19659002] It is said that Descartes came to see her one day that he was looking at the ceiling and that he saw a fly .

  Fly

He departed from a fly to build a bridge

But suppose you took a coffee with a friend. [19659002] To find out how to get to the meeting place, just look at a map and check the route. [19659002] Maybe 3 blocks to the right and one to the left?

] It sounds like an incredibly simple idea, but in fact it has revolutionized mathematics.

What Descartes has demonstrated is that a pair of numbers could determine the position of a point in space .

Each coordinate pair specifies a single point and each point comes with a unique coordinate pair.

  GPS

Thanks to René Descartes

This sounds trivial, but it was only the beginning. This becomes more interesting when you apply this idea to curves.

When this point moves around a circle, its coordinates change and we can write an equation that characterizes this circle in a precise and unique way.

[1965] For the first time, the forms can be described by a formula .

By unifying the language of numbers, equations and symbols with forms, Descartes builds a bridge between geometry and algebra: badytic geometry.

He was able to broaden the horizon of mathematics and lay the foundations of the modern scientific world

A less divine reason

What Descartes and the other pioneers like him did, questioned the admitted wisdom of l & # 39; era.

They thought differently and came up with monumental advances for our understanding of the universe.

  René Descartes

"To investigate the truth, one must doubt as much as possible of all things," is one of the many quotes of the great thinker that have resonated over the centuries and are now found on the Internet

Descartes lived at a time when many philosophers supported their arguments with calls to God.

He preferred to trust the power of human logic and mathematics .

He believed that all ideas should be based on experience and reason instead of tradition and authority.

It was not a question of denying the existence of God: for him, the search for the truth was the search for God, and eternal truths – similar to mathematics – were born and depended on Him [19659002] But after Descartes, that of mathematics began to be a world increasingly devoid of divine influence.


  BBC Mundo


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