XI Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2019

Rene Descartes is a French philosopher, mathematician, mechanic, physicist and physiologist, creator of analytical geometry and modern algebraic symbolism, the author of the method of radical doubt in philosophy, mechanics in physics, the forerunner of reflexology. Descartes came from an old, but impoverished noble family, was the youngest (third) son in the family.

Born March 31, 1596 in the city of La-E-en-Touraine (now Descartes), Department of Indre and Loire, France. His mother Jeanne Brochard died when he was 1 year old. His father, Joaquim Descartes, was a judge and an adviser to parliament in the city of Rennes and appeared rarely in Lae; Maternal grandmother was engaged in raising the boy.

Descartes received his primary education at the Jesuit college of La Flush, where his teacher was Jean-Francois. In college, Descartes met Maren Mersenn (then a student, later a priest), the future coordinator of the scientific life of France. Religious education only strengthened skepticism of the then philosophical authorities in young Descartes. Later he formulated his method of knowledge: deductive (mathematical) reasoning on the results of reproducible experiments.

In 1612, Descartes graduated from college, studied law for some time in Poitiers, then went to Paris, where he alternated scattered life with mathematical research for several years. Then he entered military service (1617) - first in revolutionary Holland (in those years - an ally of France), then in Germany, where he participated in the short battle for Prague (Thirty Years War). In Holland, in 1618, Descartes met the outstanding physicist and natural philosopher Isaac Beckmann, who had a significant influence on his formation as a scientist. Descartes spent several years in Paris, indulging in scientific work, where, among other things, he discovered the principle of virtual speeds, which at that time no one was yet ready to appreciate.

Then - a few more years of participation in the war (the siege of La Rochelle). Upon returning to France, it turned out that Descartes’s freethinking became known to the Jesuits, and they accused him of heresy. Therefore, Descartes moved to Holland (1628), where he spent 20 years in secluded scientific studies.

He conducts extensive correspondence with the best scientists of Europe (through the faithful Mersenn), studies a wide variety of sciences - from medicine to meteorology. Finally, in 1634, he finishes his first program book entitled The World, which consists of two parts: A Treatise on the Light and A Treatise on Man. But the moment for the publication was unsuccessful - the year before the Inquisition nearly tortured Galileo. Therefore, Descartes decided not to print this work during his lifetime.

In 1635, Descartes was born the illegal daughter Francine (from a maid). She lived only 5 years old (she died of scarlet fever); Descartes regarded the death of his daughter as the greatest grief in his life.

In 1649, Descartes, harassed by years of persecution for free-thinking, succumbed to the persuasion of the Swedish Queen Christina (with whom he had been an active correspondent for many years) and moved to Stockholm. Almost immediately after the move, he seriously caught a cold and soon died. The alleged cause of death was pneumonia. There is also a hypothesis about his poisoning, since the symptoms of Descartes's disease were similar to the symptoms that occur with acute arsenic poisoning. This hypothesis was advanced by Aiki Pease, a German scientist, and then supported by Theodore Ebert. The reason for the poisoning, according to this version, was the fear of Catholic agents that Descartes' free-thinking could interfere with their efforts to convert Queen Christina to Catholicism (this appeal really happened in 1654).

17 years after the death of a scientist, his remains were transported from Stockholm to Paris and buried in the chapel of the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Although the National Convention was planning to transfer Descartes’s ashes to the Pantheon as early as 1792, now, after more than two centuries, it continues to rest in the chapel of the abbey.

Sources of information

http://begin-english.ru/stati-na-angliiskom/ren-descartes-biography

https://www.biographyonline.net/writers/rene-descartes.html

https://www.notablebiographies.com/De-Du/Descartes-Rene.html

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Descartes.html

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rene-Descartes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes