section_path: Physics/Mechanics/Mechanical philosophy
section_name: Mechanical philosophy
paragraph_text: Mechanical philosophy
  
  The beginning to Descartes' interest in physics is accredited to the amateur scientist and mathematician Isaac Beeckman, whom he met in 1618, and who was at the forefront of a new school of thought known as mechanical philosophy. With this foundation of reasoning, Descartes formulated many of his theories on mechanical and geometric physics. It is said that they met when both were looking at a placard that was set up in the Breda marketplace, detailing a mathematical problem to be solved. Descartes asked Beeckman to translate the problem from Dutch to French. In their following meetings Beeckman interested Descartes in his corpuscularian approach to mechanical theory, and convinced him to devote his studies to a mathematical approach to nature. In 1628, Beeckman also introduced him to many of Galileo 's ideas. Together, they worked on free fall, catenaries, conic sections, and fluid statics. Both believed that it was necessary to create a method that thoroughly linked mathematics and physics.