What do you know about the famous French mathematician rene descartes?
Born in La Haye en Touraine (now Descartes in his honor), France, Rene Descartes would go on to become one of the most reknowned philosophers and mathematicians in the world. His mathematical legacy provided the basis for several mathematical theories. (Which I’ll provide links to if you would like to read further) Descartes’ theory provided the basis for the calculus of Newton and Leibniz, by applying infinitesimal calculus to the tangent line problem, thus permitting the evolution of that branch of modern mathematics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangent_line_problem Descartes’ rule of signs is also a commonly used method to determine the number of positive and negative zeros of a polynomial. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes%27_rule_of_signs Descartes created analytic geometry.
