What algebraic system taught in present-day schools is one of the legacies of the philosopher René Descartes to which he lent his name?
René Descartes Christian medieval period to the modern period, a shift that had been anticipated in other fields, and which was now being formulated in the field of philosophy by Descartes. This anthropocentric perspective of Descartes' work, establishing human reason as autonomous, provided the basis for the Enlightenment's emancipation from God and the Church. According to Martin Heidegger, the perspective of Descartes' work also provided the basis for all subsequent anthropology. Descartes' philosophical revolution is sometimes said to have sparked modern anthropocentrism and subjectivism. One of Descartes' most enduring legacies was his development of Cartesian or analytic geometry, which uses algebra to
Folium of Descartes Folium of Descartes In geometry, the folium of Descartes is an algebraic curve defined by the equation It forms a loop in the first quadrant with a double point at the origin and asymptote It is symmetrical about formula_3. The name comes from the Latin word "folium" which means "leaf". The curve was featured, along with a portrait of Descartes, on an Albanian stamp in 1966. The curve was first proposed by Descartes in 1638. Its claim to fame lies in an incident in the development of calculus. Descartes challenged Fermat to find the tangent line to the curve at