DESCARTES, RENE (RENATUS CARTESIUS)

(1596–1650)

   French mathematician and philosopher. During his military service in the French army, Descartes met the Dutchman Isaac Beeckman. Af ter some years in Paris, in the 1630s he moved to the Dutch Repub lic, where he wrote his famous Discourse on Method (1637). He left the Republic in 1649 for Sweden at the invitation of the learned Queen Christina.