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Descartes's Secret Notebook
Cover of Descartes's Secret Notebook
Descartes's Secret Notebook
A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe
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René Descartes (1596—1650) is one of the towering and central figures in Western philosophy and mathematics. His apothegm “Cogito, ergo sum” marked the birth of the mind-body problem, while his creation of so-called Cartesian coordinates has made our intellectual conquest of physical space possible.
But Descartes had a mysterious and mystical side, as well. Almost certainly a member of the occult brotherhood of the Rosicrucians, he kept a secret notebook, now lost, most of which was written in code. After Descartes’s death, Gottfried Leibniz, inventor of calculus and one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, moved to Paris in search of this notebook–and eventually found it in the possession of Claude Clerselier, a friend of Descartes’s. Liebniz called on Clerselier and was allowed to copy only a couple of pages–which, though written in code, he amazingly deciphered there on the spot. Liebniz’s hastily scribbled notes are all we have today of Descartes’s notebook.
Why did Descartes keep a secret notebook, and what were its contents? The answers to these questions will lead the reader on an exciting, swashbuckling journey, and offer a fascinating look at one of the great figures of Western culture.
René Descartes (1596—1650) is one of the towering and central figures in Western philosophy and mathematics. His apothegm “Cogito, ergo sum” marked the birth of the mind-body problem, while his creation of so-called Cartesian coordinates has made our intellectual conquest of physical space possible.
But Descartes had a mysterious and mystical side, as well. Almost certainly a member of the occult brotherhood of the Rosicrucians, he kept a secret notebook, now lost, most of which was written in code. After Descartes’s death, Gottfried Leibniz, inventor of calculus and one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, moved to Paris in search of this notebook–and eventually found it in the possession of Claude Clerselier, a friend of Descartes’s. Liebniz called on Clerselier and was allowed to copy only a couple of pages–which, though written in code, he amazingly deciphered there on the spot. Liebniz’s hastily scribbled notes are all we have today of Descartes’s notebook.
Why did Descartes keep a secret notebook, and what were its contents? The answers to these questions will lead the reader on an exciting, swashbuckling journey, and offer a fascinating look at one of the great figures of Western culture.
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  • Chapter 1 Chapter 1
    The Gardens of Touraine


    JUST BEFORE RENE DESCARTES WAS born, on March 31, 1596, his mother, Jeanne Brochard, took an action that may well have altered the course of Western civilization. For like Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon in 49 B.C., Jeanne Brochard crossed the Creuse River, which lay between her family home, in the region of Poitou, and the small town of La Haye, which lies in the region of Touraine, in western central France.

    The Descartes family had originated in Poitou and had lived for many years in the town of Chatellerault, about twenty-five kilometers south of La Haye. Descartes' parents, Joachim Descartes and Jeanne Brochard, who were married on January 15, 1589, owned a stately mansion in the center of Chatellerault, at 126 rue Carrou-Bernard (today's rue Bourbon).

    Joachim Descartes was the councillor of the Parliament of Brittany, and this important job kept him away in distant Rennes. Jeanne needed her mother's help in birthing the baby, and this is why she traveled north and across the river to Touraine to give birth to René Descartes in her mother's house in La Haye. Sometime later, once she had recovered, she returned to Chatellerault. Despite this accident of birth, throughout his life, Rene's friends would often call him Rene le Poitevin—Rene of Poitou.

    The regions of Poitou and Touraine include pastoral farmlands that have been cultivated since antiquity. There are low hills, many of which are forested, and rich flatlands, irrigated by rivers that cut through this fertile land. Cows and sheep graze here, and many kinds of crops are grown. La Haye is a small town of stone houses with gray roofs. At the time of Descartes, the population of the town numbered about 750 people.

    Chatellerault is a larger, more genteel town than La Haye, with wide avenues and an elegant city square, and it serves as the hub of rural life in the region. Because this part of France is so fertile and rich in water and agricultural resources, the people who live here are well off. North of La Haye one can still visit the beautiful chateaus of the Loire Valley, as well as forests and game reserves, which existed at the time of Descartes. The chateaus, many of them restored to their original state, with lavish fifteenth- and sixteenth-century furnishings and surrounded by sculpted gardens, give us a feel for the life of the rich at the time of Descartes.

    While the regions of Poitou and Touraine are similar in their topography, scenery, and the way the towns and villages are laid out, there was one important difference between them. While Poitou was mainly Protestant, Touraine was mostly Catholic. We know that in the fifteen years from 1576 to 1591, there were only seventy-two Protestant baptisms in La Haye. This significant religious difference between the two regions would affect the life of René Descartes. For this accident of birth—being born, and later also raised, in a strongly Catholic region while his family hailed from a Protestant one—would exert a significant impact on René's personality, thus influencing his actions throughout his life and determining the course of development of his philosophical and scientific ideas and the way he divulged them to the world.

    Descartes lived in a century that knew severe tensions, including wars, between Catholics and Protestants. The fact that he was born in a Catholic region and would be raised by a devout Catholic governess, while many of his family's friends and associates in Poitou were Protestants, contributed to Descartes' natural secretiveness. It also made him, as an adult, much more concerned about the Catholic Inquisition than...

About the Author-
  • AMIR D. ACZEL is the author of many research articles on mathematics, two textbooks, and nine nonfiction books, including the international bestseller Fermat's Last Theorem, which was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Award. Aczel has appeared on over thirty television programs, including nationwide appearances on CNN, CNBC, and Nightline, and on over a hundred radio programs, including NPR's Weekend Edition and Morning Edition. Aczel is a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    Starred review from August 29, 2005
    What Aczel did for mathematician Fermat (Fermat's Last Theorem
    ) he now does for Descartes in this splendid study about the French philosopher and mathematician (1596–1650) most famous for his paradigm-smashing declaration, "I think; therefore, I am." Part historical sketch, part biography and part detective story, Aczel's chronicle of Descartes's hidden work hinges on his lost secret notebook. Of 16 pages of coded manuscript, one and a half were copied in 1676 by fellow philosopher and mathematician Leibniz. For him, Descartes's inscription of the cryptic letters "GFRC" immediately revealed his association with the occult fraternity of the Rosicrucians—Leibniz was also a member. The notebook also revealed to Leibniz a discovery made by Descartes that would have transformed mathematics. As Aczel so deftly demonstrates, Descartes's mathematical theories were paths to an understanding the order and mystery of the cosmos, and he kept the notebook hidden because it contained a formula that—because it supported Copernicus's model of the solar system—Descartes feared would lead to his persecution by the Inquisition. Aczel lucidly explains the science, mystery and mathematics of Descartes, who has never been so lively as he is in the pages of this first-rate biography and social history. Agent, John Taylor Williams.

  • Keith Devlin, author of Goodbye, Descartes: The End of Logic and the Search for a New Cosmology of the Mind "Aczel joins the ranks of Roger Penrose, Stephen Pinker, Francis Crick, and others."
  • Publishers Weekly "Aczel maps the strange, beautiful byways of modern mathematical thought in ways that the layperson can grasp."
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Descartes's Secret Notebook
Descartes's Secret Notebook
A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe
Amir D. Aczel
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