10 Cool Things about Rene Descartes

This is a blog about high school applications of mathematics. However, sometimes I've thrown in some historical things or bios. I was thinking maybe once a month I might focus on a particular mathematician. It might be interesting when presenting, say the topic of analytic geometry, some info on the so-called "Father of analytic geometry" Rene Descartes. We'll see how it goe.

I thought, also, instead of a dry bio, make it into a top ten list. These won't necessarily be the 10 most vital things about the mathematician. Just some things I found interesting.

Without further ado: Ten Cool Things about Rene Descartes

1. His hometown, LaHaye, France is now known as Descartes, France in his honor.
2. He earned a law degree from the University of Poitiers.
3. he did not publicize his theories on the solar system being heliocentric after seeing the treatment Galilleo received.
4. In spite of this, Pope Alexander still put his works on a list of prohibited books.
5. He never married, although had a daughter who died at the age of five.
6. Feeling there were to many things being accepted as true, he started with only "Cogito, ergo sum" - "I think, therefore I am.
7. At the turn of the millennium, the A&E Network conducted a survey of historians on the 100 most important people of the millennium. Descartes came in #32.
8. The concept of exponents predated his time, but Descartes had the idea of writing them as superscripts.
9. He showed that a viewers angle from the center to the edge of a rainbow is 42 degrees.
10. He wrote proofs verifying the existence of God.
11.