Book Review - Descartes's Secret Note pad

Posted by Robb Zaine on April 12th, 2017

a researcher who can write about scientific research in terms that somebody like me, an individual that is not a professional researcher yet loves for more information about science, can understand.

But that's not all. Aczel might've been an excellent enigma or thriller writer if he didn't write about science since all his publications have that page-turner quality to them. When you grab an Aczel book it won't be easy to place it down.

Descartes's Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Math, Mysticism, and the Pursuit to Understand deep space, as well as his two various other essential publications (The Jesuit and the Head and Fermat's Last Theorem: Unlocking the secret book of an Ancient Mathematical Problem) all offer a wonderful reading experience while showing a whole lot concerning history of scientific research.

Aczel excels in taking us back to the very early 17th century and bringing to life the social scene where the seeds of Rene Descartes' concepts originated, began then grew right into full blossom as a new standard, i.e. the Cartesian System, that transformed our globe for life.

Nonetheless, if all Aczel did was to "explain" Descartes' ideas there would certainly not be any type of requirement for the subtitle of the book: "A True Story of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Pursuit to Comprehend deep space." He does more than that.

Descartes was a really private and "masked" male that led an active life and also left a mysterious "Secret Publication." Aczel unravels for us the significance of Descartes' unpublished notes which were maintained and decoded thanks to an additional scientific titan of that era, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, that made an individual check out to Paris to handcopy Descartes' secret book long after the fatality of the French Master in 1650.

Throughout the book we are treated to one delectable morsel from background of scientific research after another including Descartes' love of traveling and interest in battles as well as war; just how Italian mathematicians held public quadratic equation "duels" in the 16th century for fame and riches; the significance of the "Rosicrucian connection" in Descartes' life and job; why Descartes can not publish whatever he created throughout his extremely effective career; his tests and also tribulations throughout his Dutch exile; his continuous balancing act between the Catholic as well as Protestant factions of his day; why the old Greeks might not have actually solved the "Delian challenge" by using only a straightedge and also compass; significance of Kepler in the Descartian world; Descartes' lovemaking; Descartes' unrecognized payment to geography (concerning 100 years before Euler); his Swedish period as personal tutor to Queen Christina; his fatality as well as the unusual destiny of his skull; and also far more ...

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After reading this book you'll feel enriched by an intimate understanding of among the most vital periods in the development of Western science as we understand it today and the incomparable duty Rene Descartes played in it.

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Robb Zaine

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Robb Zaine
Joined: August 9th, 2016
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