Although Descartes is generally credited with inventing analytical geometry, several aspects had been used by the Greek mathematicians Menaechmus (4th century BC) and Apollonius of Perga (3rd century BC). Much later (11th century), the Persian mathematician Omar Khayyam, used methods which modern mathematicians consider akin to analytical geometry. In 1637 Rene Descartes published his work on the topic but it was incomplete and was in French. It took another decade or so before it was translated into Latin and some of the gaps filled that Descartes' ideas took off.
It seems that the Ancient Greeks knew about exponentiation already. The notation we currently used, on the other hand, was introduced by Descartes, in the 17th century.
Descartes did not invent polynomials.
Philosophically, Descartes was concerned with the existence of reality.
6th century BC
1596 - 1650
Rene Descartes was a French mathematician and in the early 17th century he introduced what we call today the Cartesian coordinate plane in which graphs are plotted.
Louis Dimier has written: 'Descartes' 'French painting in the sixteenth century'
How did descartes affect the 18th and 19th century?"Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to provide a philosophical framework for the natural sciences as these began to develop. Most famously, this is known as ( "I think, therefore I am"). "The simple meaning of the phrase is that if one is skeptical of existence, that is in and of itself proof that he does exist."
yes, but he moved to the Netherlands later in his life
He died at the age of 53.
Descartes did not directly contribute to the development of calculus. Calculus was primarily developed by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the late 17th century, after Descartes' time. However, Descartes did make significant contributions to the field of mathematics through his work in analytic geometry, which laid the foundation for the later development of calculus by Newton and Leibniz.
Cartesian coordinates (x,y) were invented by Rene Descartes in the 17th Century.
Descartes' questioning of what it means to be human, how we can escape solipsm, explain the self and believe in God had a large effect because it caused many following philosophers to consider the same issue. For example the philosoper Hume came up with many criticisms of Descartes, namely what exactly is 'I' in 'I think therefore I am.'
René Descartes lived most of his life in the Netherlands, particularly in the cities of Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Egmond. He moved there in the 1620s to take advantage of the intellectual freedom and tolerance in Dutch society at the time.
A town that Descartes born was renamed into 'Descartes"
Cartesian coordinates after the 17th Century French mathematician and philosopher, Rene Descartes