Lovett School issued the following announcement on Mar. 3.
On the last day of the shortest month of the year, Lovett was blessed with a visit from René Descartes. This was puzzling, given that Descartes, who, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, was a “creative mathematician of the first order, an important scientific thinker, and an original metaphysician,” lived from 1596–1650.
Turns out the visitor who famously said “I think, therefore I am” was not actually Rene Descartes, no matter how much he may have thought he was. Instead, it was Mr. Butler (Aka. Mathman). Makes sense, since there have been other times that he has turned math class into history class. I was one of many who were blessed to have with “Mr. Descartes” as a math teacher on February 28th in place of our favorite math teacher.
Mathman told us about how we could all thank Descartes for bringing geometry and algebra together, and for confirming that we do exist and are not just in a bad dream. We also learned that during this time one had to follow the rules or die and that it was dangerous to promote ideas that went against the teachings of the church.
As interesting as all this was, for me, the gist of the lesson was that lovely Mr. Descartes, may, with his complicated math ideas, be the reason for my bad grade all these centuries later.
Original source can be found here.
Source: Lovett School
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