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Descartes' rule of signs. In mathematics, Descartes' rule of signs, described by René Descartes in his La Géométrie, counts the roots of a polynomial by examining sign changes in its coefficients. The number of positive real roots is at most the number of sign changes in the sequence of polynomial's coefficients (omitting zero coefficients ...
Cartesian coordinates are the foundation of analytic geometry, and provide enlightening geometric interpretations for many other branches of mathematics, such as linear algebra, complex analysis, differential geometry, multivariate calculus, group theory and more. A familiar example is the concept of the graph of a function.
Descartes' theorem is most easily stated in terms of the circles' curvatures. [25] The signed curvature (or bend) of a circle is defined as , where is its radius.
An ordered pair is a 2-tuple or couple. More generally still, one can define the Cartesian product of an indexed family of sets. The Cartesian product is named after René Descartes, [5] whose formulation of analytic geometry gave rise to the concept, which is further generalized in terms of direct product.
René Descartes (/ deɪˈkɑːrt / day-KART or UK: / ˈdeɪkɑːrt / DAY-kart; French: [ʁəne dekaʁt] ⓘ; [note 3][11] 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) [12][13]: 58 was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathematics was paramount to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously ...
The folium of Descartes is related to the trisectrix of Maclaurin by affine transformation. To see this, start with the equation and change variables to find the equation in a coordinate system rotated 45 degrees. This amounts to setting. In the plane the equation is. If we stretch the curve in the direction by a factor of this becomes which is ...
Snell's law (also known as the Snell–Descartes law, the ibn-Sahl law, [1] and the law of refraction) is a formula used to describe the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction, when referring to light or other waves passing through a boundary between two different isotropic media, such as water, glass, or air.
Regulae ad directionem ingenii, or Rules for the Direction of the Mind is an unfinished treatise regarding the proper method for scientific and philosophical thinking by René Descartes. Descartes started writing the work in 1628, and it was eventually published in 1701 after Descartes' death. [1] This treatise outlined the basis for his later work on complex problems of mathematics, geometry ...