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Born- March 31, 1596

Died- February 11, 1650

Renee was born to Joachim and Jeanne Descartes in La Haye, France. He had a brother named Pierre and a sister named Jeanne. Their mother died when they were young and their grandmother brought them up. Renee's father was a lawyer and did not have much time to raise a family. At the age of 8 he attended the Jesuit College of La Fleche. He later went on to enroll in the army of Prince 

Maurice of Nassau but saw very little action. After the army he moved to Holland for 2 decades where he did most of his work. He was then invited to stay with the Queen of England and teach her philosophy. He died there at the age of 54 from pneumonia.

Renee was the main contributor to the connection of algebra and geometry. He was the one that created graphing. He also invented the Cartesian coordinate system, which he named after himself. This system was based on the idea that points were represented as ordered pairs and lines and curves were represented as equations. His work is used throughout all of graphing today.

He lived in the time period called the Age of Reasoning. It was called that because there were many advances were being made in weapons, learning’s, and technology. This was also the time period where the new worlds were being discovered. That was when they realized that the earth was not flat but round. Along with this discovery came a need for new knowledge. There were many other mathematicians working in the same time period as Descartes. Among them were Isaac Newton, Edmond Halley, and Johannes Kepler.  

~Sources~

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96mar/descartes.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes

http://www.bookrags.com/essay-2005/3/6/17322/80772

The World of Mathematics: by James Newton