René Descartes
Descartes laid the foundation for 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes were all well versed in mathematics as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as well. His best known philosophical statement is "Cogito ergo sum" (French: Je pense, donc je suis; I think, therefore I am), found in part IV of Discourse on the Method (1637 – written in French but with inclusion of "Cogito ergo sum") and §7 of part I of Principles of Philosophy (1644 – written in Latin). Early life[edit] Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine (now Descartes), Indre-et-Loire, France. In his book, Discourse On The Method, he says "I entirely abandoned the study of letters. Visions[edit] According to Adrien Baillet, on the night of 10–11 November 1619 (St. Work[edit] Death[edit] In 1991 E.
Pierre de Fermat
Pierre de Fermat (French: [pjɛːʁ dəfɛʁma]; 17[2] August 1601 or 1607[1] – 12 January 1665) was a French lawyer at the Parlement of Toulouse, France, and an amateur mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he is recognized for his discovery of an original method of finding the greatest and the smallest ordinates of curved lines, which is analogous to that of the differential calculus, then unknown, and his research into number theory. He made notable contributions to analytic geometry, probability, and optics. He is best known for Fermat's Last Theorem, which he described in a note at the margin of a copy of Diophantus' Arithmetica. Life and work[edit] Fermat was born in the first decade of the 17th century in Beaumont-de-Lomagne (present-day Tarn-et-Garonne), France; the late 15th-century mansion where Fermat was born is now a museum. Work[edit] Pierre de Fermat Death[edit] Notes[edit]
Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton, FRS (/ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈɡɔːltən/; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911) was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician. He was knighted in 1909. Galton produced over 340 papers and books. He also created the statistical concept of correlation and widely promoted regression toward the mean. He was the first to apply statistical methods to the study of human differences and inheritance of intelligence, and introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys for collecting data on human communities, which he needed for genealogical and biographical works and for his anthropometric studies. He was a pioneer in eugenics, coining the term itself[1] and the phrase "nature versus nurture".[2] His book Hereditary Genius (1869) was the first social scientific attempt to study genius and greatness.[3] Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Louisa Jane Butler Middle years[edit]
Liberty’s Exiles by Maya Jasanoff: Review
While we may not all be able to compete in the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, here are some incredible places to plan your own competition and try out a few of the most exhilarating events. Ski-Jumping, Park City, Utah It’s the Winter Olympics at its most mentally chilling: Lycra-ed figures in oversize skis hurtling down jumps, launching off at 55 mph, dangling midair, then landing safely (hopefully) on the slope below. Admission to Utah Olympic Park is free; guided tours cost $11, and run daily on the hour from 11am to 4pm. Figure-Skating, Lake Weissensee, Carinthia, Austria Lake Weissensee may have the only skating academy based on natural ice, but it’s not necessarily a good place to learn. Lake Weissensee is 75 miles from Klagenfurt airport. Bobsleigh, Lillehammer, Norway Bombing down a bobsleigh track, reaching speeds of 75 mph and facing forces of 5G really looks like something you should leave to the experts. Lillehammer is 110 miles north of Oslo. Toboggan, Cresta Run, St.
