René Descartes

Hello, my name is René Descartes. I lived a very long time ago. I was born on March 31st, 1596, in a country called France. When I was a little boy, I did not like to jump out of bed right away. My favorite thing to do was to stay in my warm, cozy bed and think. I would lie there and think, think, think about very big questions. I wondered about the stars, about numbers, and about everything I could see. Thinking was my favorite game, and my mind was my favorite playground. I loved asking questions about the world all day long.

I want to tell you about my biggest idea. One day, I asked myself, 'How do I know that I am real?'. It was a big question. Then, I had a big thought. My answer was, 'I think, therefore I am!'. That just means that because I can have my very own thoughts inside my head, I must be a real person. Isn't that neat? I also loved math very much. I found a special way to use numbers to talk about shapes and places. My idea helped people make better maps to find their way. In the year 1637, I wrote about this idea in a book. It was called the Cartesian coordinate system, which was named after me.

I spent my whole life thinking about big questions and writing my answers in books for others to read. I even traveled to a cold country called Sweden to teach a queen all about my ideas. It was very chilly there. I lived to be 53 years old, and my life ended in the year 1650. Today, people remember me as a great thinker. I taught everyone that it is good to ask important questions and to use math to understand our world. My ideas are still helping people learn new and wonderful things even now.