Biography of René Descartes… Plato: Greek philosopher … Pythagoras: Greek mathematician… Marie Curie…

Biography of René Descartes

(31/03/1596 - 1650/02/11)
René Descartes
French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher

He was born March 31, 1596 in La Haye, Touraine (France) in a family of officials.
The son of a Counsellor of the Parlement of Brittany. Her mother died a month after her birth, which inherited a fortune that allowed him to live with economic independence.
With eight years came at the Jesuit School of La Flèche in Anjou, where he would remain until the age of 16.
Along with the typical classical studies Descartes studied mathematics and Scholasticism with the purpose of guiding human reason to understand Christian doctrine. He was influenced by Catholicism.
At the end of his studies at the school, he enrolled in law at the University of Poitiers, earning the b.a. in 1616. However, never practiced the legal profession; in 1618 he entered the service of Prince Mauritius I of Nassau-Orange with the intention to follow the military career.
Descartes served in other armies, but his interest always centered on the problems of mathematics and philosophy, to which he devoted the rest of his life.
He moved to Italy, where he stayed from 1623 to 1624 and went to France, where it would reside between 1624 and 1628. In this period, dedicated fully to the philosophy and to carry out experiments in optics.
In 1628, after selling their properties in France, he went to Holland, where he lived in different cities, Amsterdam, Deventer, Utrecht and Leiden. It was then when he wrote philosophical essays, which was published in 1637. This consists of four parts: an essay on geometry, another about optics, a third on meteors and the last, the speech method, describing its philosophical speculations.
This was followed by, among other trials, metaphysical meditations (1641; revised 1642) and the principles of philosophy(1644). The last volume was dedicated to Princess Elizabeth Stuart of Bohemia, who lived in the Netherlands and with which he maintained a great friendship.
He tried to apply to philosophy of inductive science, and in particular mathematics rational procedures. Before you configure your method, philosophy had been dominated by the Scholastic method, which was based entirely on comparing and contrasting the opinions of recognized authorities. Rejecting this system, Descartes established: "in our search for the direct route to the truth, not should deal with objects that we can not achieve a certainty similar to the demonstrations of the arithmetic and geometry. For this reason he doubted everything even have established reasons to believe. He left the first truth or Cogito, ergo sum, "I think, therefore I am". Starting from the principle that the clear consciousness of thinking proves his own existence, he maintained the existence of God. God, according to the philosophy of Descartes, created two classes of substances that constitute the whole of reality. A class was the substance thinking, or intelligence, and the other substance extensive, or physics.
His philosophy, also known as Cartesianism, led him to develop complex and erroneous explanations of various physical phenomena. He approached the Copernicus theory of the universe, with its idea of a system of planets rotating moving around the Sun, he renounced this theory when it was considered heretical by the Catholic Church. Instead he devised a doctrine of vortices or whirlpools of Ethereal matter, in which the space was full of matter, in different States, by turning over the Sun.
His most important contribution to mathematics was the systematization of analytic geometry.
He was the first who attempted to classify curves according to the type of equations that produce them, and also contributed to the development of the theory of equations.
Descartes was responsible for the use of the last letters of the alphabet to designate the first letters to the known and unknown quantities. Also invented the method of the exponents (as in x 2) to indicate the powers of numbers. Moreover, formulated the rule, known as the law Cartesian of the signs, to decode the number of positive and negative roots of any algebraic equation.
In 1649 Descartes was invited to the Court of Christina of Sweden in Stockholm for the Queen to take philosophy courses. Everything seemed to be doing well if Cristina had not insisted on making to teach philosophy from five in the morning in a large, cold room. Descartes was too well educated to complain of this unpleasant circumstance, although I always hated the cold and rarely got up before noon. After three months of these horrific classes before dawn, sick of gravity and died February 11, 1650, a respiratory disease, which was probably pneumonia. Seventeen years later, his body returned to Paris, where he was buried.
Works
1628. rules for the guidance of the spirit
1630. the world or Treaty of light
1637 discourse on the method
1641 metaphysical meditations
1642. the search for the truth through natural reason
1644 principles of philosophy
1649. passions of the soul

Biography of Plato

(Unknown - Unknown)
Plato
Greek philosopher

"The wise man will want to always be with who is better than him"
Plato
Born 427 b.c. in Athens or Aegina. Plato was actually called Áristocles. He received the nickname with which we know and which means "wide back" by his size. During his youth he became two-time Olympic champion fight.
He belonged to a noble family. His father, Ariston, fancied himself a descendant of King Codro, the last King of Athens. His mother Períctiona, descended from the family of Solon, the ancient Greek legislator. It was also sister of Charmides and Critias premium. Plato had two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, and a sister, Potone.
It was an education careful in all areas of knowledge. Young, Plato had political ambitions but became disillusioned with the rulers of Athens. It is possible that it began in philosophy with the teachings of Cratylusheracliteano. When it has twenty years takes place the meeting with Socrates , who was then 63 years old and will become his only teacher until his death.
Proclaimed a disciple of Socrates, accepted its philosophy and its dialectical form of debate: the obtaining of truth by asking questions. It seems that he witnessed the death of his master. Fearing for his life, he left Athens some time and traveled to Italy, Sicily and Egypt.
Plato founded in Athens Academy, often regarded as the first European University institution in the year 387. Subjects such as astronomy, biology, mathematics, political theory and philosophy were given. Aristotle was his most prominent pupil. Given the possibility of combining philosophy and political practice, he traveled to Sicily in 367 BC to be guardian of the new ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius the younger. The experiment failed. Plato returned to Syracuse in 361 BC, but once more its participation in the Sicilian events had little success.
It is the first Greek thinker whose work is entirely preserved, and Aristotle transmitted even fragments of his teaching oral at the Academy, apparently discordant with his writings. His writings took the form of dialogues, exposing philosophical ideas were discussed and criticized in the context of a conversation or a discussion involving two or more people. The first group of writings of Plato includes 35 dialogues and 13 cards.
He spent the last years of his life giving lectures at the Academy and writing. He died next to age 80 in Athens in the year 347 or 348 BC
Works
First dialogues or youth or Socratic dialogues:
Apology
Ion
Crito
Protagoras
Laches
Thrasymachus
Lysis
Charmides
Euthyphro
Time of transition:
Gorgias
Menon
Euthydemus
Hippias minor
Cratylus
Greater Hippias
Menexenus
Time of maturity or critical dialogues:
Banquet
Fedon
Republic
Phaedrus
Old age or critical dialogues dialog:
Theaetetus
Parmenides
Sophist
Politician
Philebus
Timaeus
Critias
Laws
Epinomis

Biography of Pythagoras

(Unknown - Unknown)
Pythagoras
Greek mathematician and philosopher

The 570 a.C.en the island of Samos, near Miletus, perhaps to be son of Menesarco, a wealthy merchant of Samos was born.
He probably travelled to Egypt, Phoenicia and Babylonia. He returned to Samos during the dictatorship of Polycrates (538-522). To 529, he travelled to the South of Italy and founded the Pythagorean brotherhood in Croton.
Educated in the teachings of the first philosophers Ionian as such of Mileto, Anaximander , and Anaximenes. Around 530 BC case settled in Croton, Greek colony in southern Italy, there a movement with political and philosophical purposes, known as pythagoreanism .
The philosophy of Pythagoras is only known through the work of his disciples. The Pythagoreans counseled obedience and silence, abstinence, the simplicity in dress and self-analysis. The first prominent modern vegetarian was Pythagoras. The Pythagorean diet came to mean avoiding the meat of butchered animals. The Pythagorean ethics first became a philosophical morality between 490-430 B.c. with the desire to create a universal and absolute law including an order not kill "living creatures", refrain from "unpleasant strident killing", in particular sacrifices of animals, and "never to eat meat" - "The feast of heretics". They believed in the immortality and the transmigration of the soul. Pythagoras claimed that he had been Euphorbius, and fought during the Trojan war.
Among mathematical investigations of the Pythagoreans are his studies of odd and even numbers, primes and squares, essential in the theory of numbers. They cultivated the concept of number, which became for them the crucial principle of all proportion, order and harmony in the universe. Through these studies, they established a scientific basis for mathematics.
In geometry , they discovered the theorem of the hypotenuse, known as Pythagorean theorem, which States that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. In astronomy the Pythagoreans meant a breakthrough in classical scientific thought, since they were the first to see the Earth as a globe rotating with other planets around a central fire. They explained the harmonious order of all things as bodies moving according to a numerical scheme, a sphere of simple and comprehensive reality. They thought that celestial bodies were separated from one another by intervals corresponding to harmonic string lengths and maintained that the movement of the spheres gives rise to a musical sound, call harmony of the spheres.
The Pythagoreans got great political influence in Magna Greece (South of Italy), which provoked reactions against them. The first forced Pythagoras to abandon Crotona and retiring to Métaponte, where it is said that it was left to die of hunger the 495 BC, although there are other versions of his death.
THE GOLDEN VERSES
attributed to Pythagoras
Honored, in the first place, and the immortal gods, worships
to each according to his rank.
Then respects the oath, and reverence to the illustrious heroes,
and also to the underground geniuses:
you turn so what laws rule.
Then honor your parents and your blood relatives.
And others, become a friend of which stands out by virtue.
It yields to gentle words and not you opongas helpful acts.
Do not store grudge to friend a slight lack.
These things do to the extent of your strength,
as possible is located next to what is necessary.
Get you to abide by these precepts,
but atiéne you to dominate
first and foremost the needs of your stomach and your dream,
After starting your appetites and your anger.
Don't ever make a shameful action,
Neither with anyone, nor alone:
Above all, respect yourself.
Then you exercise to practice justice, in words and works,
Learn how to not behave without reason ever.
And knowing that death is the law fatal for all,
than riches, sometimes pleases you to earn them and others you want to lose them.
The sufferings that fit to the mortals by divine design,
the part that you, bear it without indignation;
but it is legitimate that you seek remedy to the extent of your strength;
because there are not so many misfortunes that fall on the good men.
There are many voices, a few unworthy, other nobles, who come to hurt the ear:
Not you though or not you again not to hear them.
When you hear a lie, take it in stride.
But I'm now going to tell you
It is necessary that you turn it always:
Anyone else, by his sayings or deeds,
You stirs you do or say anything that is not better for you.
Think before acting to avoid nonsense:
Act and speak without discernment is of poor people.
You on the other hand always do what cannot damage you.
Not enter into matters that you ignore,
more learn what is necessary:
such is the rule of a pleasant life.
Do not neglect your health,
keep moderation in eating or drinking,
and in the exercise of the body.
By moderation, I mean what do you harm.
Get used to a healthy life without molicie,
and beware of what may attract envy.
You are not dissipated in your expenses
as do those who ignore what is honesty,
But why not let be generous:
There is nothing better than moderation in all things.
Get so that you do not damage, and think before you act.
And don't let that sweet sleep from seizing your droopy eyes
without having reviewed what you did on the day:
"In what I have wrong? What have I done? What duty have failed to comply?"
Starts from the beginning and explore it all,
and reproach you errors and rejoice in its successes.
This is what needs to be done.
These things which must strive to practice,
These things are to love.
For them, you will enter into the divine path of perfection.
For whom he transmitted to our understanding the Tetratkis,
the source of perennial nature.
Maybe later! get to work,
but not before praying to the gods to lead it to perfection.
If you observares these things
you will know the order that prevails among the deathless gods and mortal men,
what things are separated and what are attached.
And you know, as just, is that nature is one and the same everywhere,
so don't wait so there is no wait,
nothing is hidden from your eyes.
You will meet men,
victims of the evils that they themselves impose,
blind to the goods that surround them, which do not hear nor see:
few are those who know how to get rid of misfortune.
Such is the fate that clogs the spirit of mortals,
as children's accounts roll from one side to another,
oppressed by innumerable evils:
because without warning it discord, punished
its natural and sad companion,
that there is no cause, but give you way and flee from it.
O father Zeus! Of how many evils libraries not to men
If you just did to see what demon obey!
But for you, have confidence,
because human beings are made of a divine race
and there are also the sacred nature that shows them and see them all.
Of all of which, if take what belongs to you,
you will observe my commandments,
they are your remedy, and rid your soul with such evils.
It abstiéne you in food as said,
either for the purifications, or for the release of the soul,
judge and think of everything and every one,
your mind, which is the best of your guides hoisting high.
If you neglect your body to fly up to the free orbs of the ether,
you will be a God immortal, incorruptible,
no longer subject to death

Biography of Marie Curie

(1867/11/07 - 1934/07/04)
Marie Curie
Marja Sklodowska
French physics

He was born on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw (Poland).
It was the last of five children of the teachers Bronislawa Boguska, and Wladyslaw Sklodowski, who taught classes of mathematics and physics.
When he was ten years of age he began to attend the boarding school of J. Sikorska; He then attended a school for girls, in which he graduated on June 12 1883 with gold medal. He suffered a collapse, possibly due to a depression, and spent a year at the camp with relatives of his father, and the following year with her father in Warsaw, where he gave private lessons because it was not possible to sign up at an institution of higher education for being a woman. Along with her sister Bronislawa joined the clandestine Uniwersytet Latajacy, an institution of higher education that if he admitted female students.
In 1891 he went to Paris, where he changed his name to Marie. In 1891 he enrolled in the course of science of the Parisian SorbonneUniversity. Two years later, she completed her studies of physics with the number one in his class. He shared his study time with learning and acting in amateur theatre.
In 1894 she met Pierre Curie. At that time, the two were working in the field of magnetism. With 35 years, Pierre Curie was a bright hope in French physics. He loved right away that thin and almost austere Polish of 27 years who shared their altruistic faith in science. Once Pierre proposed marriage to her and convince her to live in Paris, held on July 26, 1895 your wedding with an extreme simplicity: fiesta, alliances, or white dress. The bride wears a plain blue suit that day and then, with her boyfriend, rides a bicycle to begin honeymoon on the roads of France. The couple had two daughters, one of them also won a Nobel: her husband, Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie, received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935 for the obtaining of new radioactive elements.
Marie Curie was interested in the recent discoveries of new types of radiation. Wilhelm Roentgen had discovered x-rays in 1895, and in 1896 Antoine Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium emitted invisible radiation similar. For all this he began to study the radiation of uranium and using the piezoelectric techniques invented by Pierre, carefully measured the uraninite, a mineral containing uranium radiation. When he saw that radiation of ore were more intense than the own uranium, he realized that I must have elements unknown, even more radioactive than uranium. Marie Curie was the first to use the term 'radioactive' to describe the elements that emit radiation when their nuclei are decomposed.
Her husband finished his work on magnetism to join the investigation of his wife, and in 1898 marriage announced the discovery of two new elements: polonium (Marie gave him that name in honor of its country of birth) and the radio. During the next four years marriage, working in very precarious conditions, tried a ton of uraninite, which isolated a fraction of a gram radio.
In 1903 they granted them the Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of radioactive elements, which shared with Becquerel. However, for them, this glory is a "disaster"; very reserved the two, devoured by the same passion for research, they suffer to see sections of it and seeing your lab assaulted by inappropriate people, its modest Parisian flag invaded by journalists and photographers. The frivolity that weigh them, adds an increasingly voluminous mail, which are occupied on Sunday. Marie Curie became the first woman who received this award.
In 1904, Pierre Curie was appointed Professor of physics at the University of Paris, and in 1905 the French Academymember. These charges were not normally occupied by women, and Marie did not have the same recognition. Pierre died while crossing the Dauphine Street, hit by a horse cart on April 19, 1906. From then on, Marie took care of their classes and continued its own investigations.
In 1911, Marie starred in a scandal when it establishes a relationship with the Sage Paul Langevin, who is married. Part of the press is launched against the "thief of husbands", "foreign". This year awarded her a second Nobelin chemistry, for his research on the radio and its compounds. She was named Director of the Institute of Radio of Paris in 1914 and founded the Curie Institute.
In May 1921, thanks to the American journalist Mary Meloney, she and her daughters moved to the United States, where, thanks to funds raised among the Polish community and some American millionaire could buy a gram of radio for the Institute of the Radio. In addition it got extra money for laboratory equipment.
Marie Curie suffered a pernicious anemia caused by long exposure to radiation. After being blind, he died July 4, 1934 at the Sancellemoz clinic, near Passy, Haute-Savoie, France. She was buried next to her husband in the cemetery in Sceaux, few kilometers south of Paris.
Most notable awards
Nobel Prize in physics - 1903
Davy medal - 1903
Matteucci medal - 1904
Nobel Prize in chemistry - 1911