Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine, France on March 31, 1596.

His mother died when he was

Descartes was a good student and eventually earned a law degree at the University of Poitiers in 1616 at
about 20 years of age. During this time, he began to develop a sense that it was important to use our
ability to reason (or think) to discover truth. He believed reasoning should be based on evidence.
Descartes is the philosopher who said, ''I think, therefore I am.''

Many people also call him the father of analytic geometry, which connects the fields of algebra and
geometry. This is because Descartes discovered that you can plot any two-dimensional point on a
mathematical plane. A mathematical plane is made up of an x and y axis. You may have seen this before
in math class. This plane is called the Cartesian plane, named for the Latin form of Descartes's last name.

in 1619, he invented analytic geometry, a method of solving geometric problems algebraically and
algebraic problems geometrically.

Archimedes, the greatest mathematician of antiquity, made his greatest contributions in geometry. His
methods anticipated the integral calculus 2,000 years before Newton and Leibniz.

He was the son of the astronomer Phidias and was close to King Hieron and his son Gelon, for whom he
served for many years.He was an accomplished engineer but loved pure mathematics.

Syracuse, Sicily [Italy]—died 212/211 BCE, Syracuse), the most famous mathematician and inventor in
ancient Greece. Archimedes is especially important for his discovery of the relation between the surface
and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He is known for his formulation of a hydrostatic
principle (known as Archimedes’ principle) and a device for raising water, still used, known as the
Archimedes screw.

There are nine extant treatises by Archimedes in Greek. The principal results in On the Sphere and
Cylinder (in two books) are that the surface area of any sphere of radius r is four times that of its
greatest circle (in modern notation, S = 4πr2) and that the volume of a sphere is two-thirds that of the
cylinder in which it is inscribed (leading immediately to the formula for the volume, V = 4/3πr3).
Archimedes was proud enough of the latter discovery to leave instructions for his tomb to be marked
with a sphere inscribed in a cylinder.

Euclid was an ancient Greek mathematician who lived in the Greek city of Alexandria in Egypt during the
3rd century BCE. After Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, he set up Alexandria as the political and
economic center, and many Greeks lived or worked there. Euclid is often referred to as the 'father of
geometry' and his book Elements was used well into the 20th century as the standard textbook for
teaching geometry.
There is a lot about Euclid's life that is a mystery, including the exact dates of his birth and death, and in
many historical accounts he is simply referred to as 'the author of Elements'. This is not a reflection of
his importance, just a testament of how hard it is to maintain good records over 2,300 years. Euclid
seems to have known, worked with, or influenced other major Greek figures, including Plato and
Archimedes. There are at least six major works attributed to Euclid. Most of them deal with
mathematical formulas, but also delve into things like the math of mirrors and reflections, astronomy,
and optical illusions.

The most famous work by Euclid is the 13-volume set called Elements. This collection is a combination of
Euclid's own work and the first compilation of important mathematical formulas by other
mathematicians into a single, organized format. Thus, it made mathematical learning much more
accessible. Elements also contains a series of mathematical proofs, or explanations of equations that will
always be true, which became the foundation for Western math.

Among these are Euclid's theorems, or statements proven by compounding different previously proven
statements. Two of Euclid's theorems form foundational understandings about arithmetic and number
theory.

The “Elements” remained the definitive textbook on geometry and mathematics for well over two
millennia, surviving the eclipse in classical learning in Europe during the Dark Ages through Arabic
translations. It set, for all time, the model for mathematical argument, following logical deductions from
inital assumptions (which Euclid called “axioms” and “postulates”) in order to establish proven
theorems.

Euclid’s five general axioms were:

Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.

If equals are added to equals, the wholes (sums) are equal.

If equals are subtracted from equals, the remainders (differences) are equal.

Things that coincide with one another are equal to one another.

The whole is greater than the part.

His five geometrical postulates were:

It is possible to draw a straight line from any point to any point.

It is possible to extend a finite straight line continuously in a straight line (i.e. a line segment can be
extended past either of its endpoints to form an arbitrarily large line segment).
It is possible to create a circle with any center and distance (radius).

All right angles are equal to one another (i.e. “half” of a straight angle).

If a straight line crossing two straight lines makes the interior angles on the same side less than two right
angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which the angles are less
than the two right angles.