Basic introduction: rene descartes's date of birth: 1596, March 3 1, date of death: 1650, February1,mbth: rene descartes's brief introduction, life, philosophy, contribution to science, trivia, and modern mathematics. He is also the founder of modern western philosophy and the pioneer of modern materialism, and put forward the idea of "universal doubt". His philosophical thoughts deeply influenced later Europeans and opened up the so-called "European rationalism" philosophy. Descartes was born into a low-status aristocratic family, and his father Joachim was a member of the Brittany Parliament. /kloc-at the age of 0, his mother died of tuberculosis, and he was also infected, weak and sick. After his mother died, his father moved to another place and remarried, leaving Descartes to his grandmother. Since then, his father and son seldom meet, but his father has been providing financial help so that he can receive a good education. At the age of eight, Descartes entered the Jesuit school in Laffray, where he was well trained in classical studies and mathematics. 16 13 majoring in law at the university of poitiers, 16 16 graduated. After graduation, Descartes has been indecisive about his career choice, determined to travel all over Europe, and devoted himself to seeking wisdom in the "Great Book of the World". So he enlisted in the Netherlands on 16 18 and traveled with the army. In Descartes' time, Latin was the language of scholars. According to the custom at that time, he also signed his Latin name-Renates Cassius. Because of this, the rectangular coordinate system he pioneered is also called Cartesian coordinate system (now often called Cartesian coordinate system). However, Descartes wrote in French instead of Latin, which also shows that Latin's position as a European academic language is gradually being abandoned. Descartes' interest in the combination of mathematics and physics originated when he was a soldier in Holland. 16181kloc-0/010, he happened to see the answers to Flemish math questions on the bulletin board on the roadside. This aroused his interest and made people around him translate Flemish he didn't understand into Latin. The man next to him is Isaac beekman, who is eight years older than him. Beckman was highly accomplished in mathematics and physics and soon became his spiritual mentor. Four months later, he wrote to Beckman: "You woke me up from indifference …" and told him that he had made four important discoveries in mathematics. Descartes 162 1 retired. 1622, when Descartes was 26 years old, he sold the assets left by his father and spent four years traveling in Europe, including two years in Italy and then moved to Paris. 1628 moved to the Netherlands and lived there for more than 20 years. During this period, Descartes devoted himself to philosophical research and gradually formed his own thoughts. He wrote and published many important collections in Holland, including Methodology, Essays on Philosophy and Principles of Philosophy. Descartes came to Stockholm on 1649 at the invitation of Christina in queen christina, but unfortunately he got pneumonia in this "land of bears, snow and rocks" and died on 1650 in February. His works were banned in Rome and Paris 1663. It was not lifted until 1740 in Paris, in order to provide an alternative to the Newton world system that was popular in France at that time. Descartes is widely regarded as the founder of modern western philosophy. He was the first to establish a complete philosophical system. Philosophically, Descartes is a dualist and a rationalist. Descartes believes that human beings should be able to use mathematical methods-that is, rationality-for philosophical thinking. He thinks that reason is more reliable than sensory feeling. He gave an example: when we dream, we think we are in a real world, but in fact this is just an illusion. See Zhuang Zhou Dream Butterfly. He found four rules from logic, geometry and algebra: never admit that anything is true and take what I have no doubt as truth; Every problem must be divided into several simple parts to deal with; Thought must be from simple to complex; We should make a thorough inspection from time to time to ensure that nothing is missed. Descartes applied this method not only to philosophical thinking, but also to geometry, and founded analytic geometry. So Descartes first thought that doubt is the starting point, and the knowledge of sensory perception can be doubted, so he would not say "I see therefore I am" or "I listen therefore I am". From this, he realized a truth: we can't doubt that "our doubt" means that what we can't doubt is the "doubt itself" of this matter, and only in this way can we affirm our "doubt". But when people take it for granted or take it for granted, he is confused, which leads to his famous philosophical proposition-"I think, therefore I am harmonious." Descartes took this as the most basic starting point in metaphysics, and thus concluded that "I" must be something independent of body and thinking. Descartes also tried to prove the existence of God from this starting point. Descartes believes that we all have the concept of a perfect entity, because we can't get a perfect concept from an imperfect entity, so we must have a perfect entity-God. Starting from these two points, Descartes continued to infer that since the perfect thing (God) exists, then we can be sure that the previous demon hypothesis cannot be established, because a perfect thing cannot allow such demons to deceive people, so we can be sure that "this world really exists" and the mathematical logic should be correct. In the real world, there are many features that can be rationally perceived, including their mathematical features (such as length, width and height). When our rational intelligence knows something clearly enough, it will not be illusory, but it must be what we know. Although Descartes proved the existence of the real world, he believed that the universe * * * has two different entities, namely thinking (mind) and the external world (matter), both of which come from God, and God exists independently. He believes that only man has a soul, and man is a binary being, who can think and occupy space. Animals belong only to the material world. Descartes emphasized that thought is beyond doubt, which had an important influence on later European philosophy. I think, therefore, the controversy I caused lies in the so-called existence of God and animal monism (chimpanzee, octopus, parrot, dolphin, elephant, etc. Are proved to be intelligent), and the main idea of doubt is really helpful for research. Contribution to Science Descartes' most important contribution to mathematics is the creation of analytic geometry. Descartes succeeded in connecting algebra and geometry which were completely separated at that time. Descartes proved to the world in his book Geometry that geometric problems can be reduced to algebraic problems, and geometric properties can also be discovered and proved through algebraic transformation. Descartes introduced the concepts of coordinate system and line segment operation. Descartes' achievements in mathematics provide a solid foundation for future generations to engage in calculus, which is an important cornerstone of modern mathematics. In addition, many mathematical symbols used now are first used by Descartes, including known numbers A, B, C, unknowns X, Y, Z and so on. And the representation of the index. He also discovered the relationship between the edges, vertices and surfaces of convex polyhedron, which was later called Euler-Descartes formula. He also discovered the Cartesian leaf line, which is common in calculus. In physics, Descartes also made some achievements. He put forward the theoretical demonstration of the law of light refraction for the first time in Refractive Optics. He also explained the causes of people's visual impairment and designed a kind of lens to correct their vision. In mechanics, Descartes developed Galileo's theory of motion relativity, emphasizing the linearity of inertial motion. Descartes discovered the original form of the principle of conservation of momentum (Descartes defined momentum as an absolute value, not a vector, so his principle of conservation of momentum was later proved to be wrong). He also developed some theories, such as universe evolution theory and vortex theory. Although there are many defects in the specific theory, it still has an impact on future natural scientists. He also used the refraction law of light to explain the rainbow phenomenon, and analyzed the color through the rotation speed of elemental particles. In psychology, Descartes also made some contributions. His views and great discoveries had a great influence on later psychology. He is a famous representative of modern dualism and idealism rationalism. His great discovery of reflection and reflex arc provides an important basis for the assertion that animals are machines. And put forward the response hypothesis-* * *. However, Descartes' concept of reflection is mechanical. He emphasized the difference between humans and animals. Animals have no hearts, but humans have hearts. This inference is a typical manifestation of dualism. In addition, the theory of psychosomatic resonance is another typical expression of Descartes dualism in the relationship between body and mind. He believes that the human body is composed of material entities, and the human mind is composed of spiritual entities. Mind and human body can influence each other, cause and effect each other and interact with each other. He believes that there are six kinds of primitive emotions: surprise, love, hate, desire, joy and sadness, and other emotions are branches or combinations of these six kinds of primitive emotions. Although Descartes' dualistic psychology thought was wrong in theory, it played a very promoting and progressive role in the social background at that time. He used dualism to get rid of the absolute control of theology on science and guided people's thoughts to rational thinking and concrete research. Therefore, his contribution to psychology can not be ignored. It is said that Descartes once traveled with a female robot named francine. This fictional story probably originated from his comments on the mind, but it may also be the earliest robot. Descartes ranks 65th in the list of the most influential 100 people in the history of Michael hart. Descartes' grave was excavated by grave robbers after his death, and his skull changed hands several times. Now it is in the Museum of Anthropology in Paris, France. Descartes firmly denied his relationship with the German Rose Cross, but there were many coincidences in the relevant files he left behind. He denied that it might be because of the church at that time. Descartes shared his early research on the integration of geometry and algebra with Beckman. He once said, "If you have the chance, you can say that this is your idea when you don't mind using my research or idea. It's just that he is too polite and modest, but Beckman really takes this as his own credit. Descartes was insulted, so he accused Beckman of being "stupid and ignorant"