It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.

Hello Class!

Thank you all for your hard work and thoughtful comments on last weeks post.
It was so interesting to hear how you all were able to relate your life to the life of
Descartes. Even though he lived many years ago, we can find quite a few similarities to the struggles
he faced and those that we all experience today.

For your “I Wonder” question, please respond to the following prompt in the comments below.

What are three real world applications of the coordinate plane? Feel free to list ideas that you
come up with or ones that you have researched. Instead of simply providing a list, explain how
each example uses the coordinate plane.

The next area of our mathematician’s life that we are going to focus on this week is the era in
which he lived and how that impacted his work. We have spent quite a bit of time over the past
week talking about the recent events that occured at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in
Florida. As a school, we have mourned along with those in Florida and we have had many
conversations about classroom and building safety. The reality of those events have directly
impacted what we have done in school this week. While Descartes did not experience the same
situations we currently are, there were any things in his life and the culture that surrounded him
that might have impacted his work.

Descartes lived during the reign of King Henry IV and an era of religious wars and architectural
growth. As a young man, he enrolled in the army and was placed in a division that worked to
design technologies that would aid and protect soldiers in battle. This division allowed Descartes to
improve his applied math skills and form a close relationship with Isaac Beeckman. Beeckman
served as a role model for Descartes and inspired him to study more in the hard math and science
areas. As a soldier stationed in a division that used math to solve the everyday problems of soldiers,
Descartes was able to see how math could be used in many areas! This resulted in Descartes
continuing his studies in the maths and sciences when he left the army. The culture that Descartes
would have entered into after his time in the army was one of growth and prosperity for the wealthy.
Various cities in France were being seeing large amounts of new buildings and developments.
This was a time where the wealthy began to congregate in the city and at events held by the king.

Last week I asked you to consider how Descartes might have come up with the idea to use variables
in problems to represent unknown values if he didn’t take a large number of math classes. It very well
could have been his experiences in real life that allowed him to see how crucial math can be.  
Variables were not the only thing that Descartes was able to discover during his career. He is also
thought to have contributed to the creation of the Coordinate Plane or otherwise known as Cartesian
Coordinates. Knowing a little bit more about the culture surrounding Descartes during his life, answer
the following questions for class tomorrow:

1. How do you think the development of the Coordinate Plane might have helped with events that were transpiring during Descartes’s lifetime?
2. What is something that is going on is our culture (something from the news, in the economy, in politics, or socially) that you think could be solved using math? Explain why you think math could help with this problem.
   

Smith, K. (2001, April 09). Descartes' Life and Works. Retrieved February 25, 2018, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-works/

Trueman, C. N. (2015, March 17). France in the Seventeenth Century. Retrieved February 25, 2018, from https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/france-in-the-seventeenth-century/france-in-the-seventeenth-century/