Product Description

René Descartes (1596–1650) is one of the towering and central figures in Western philosophy and mathematics. His apothegm “Cogito, ergo sum” marked the birth of the mind-body problem, while his creation of so-called Cartesian coordinates have made our physical and intellectual conquest of physical space possible.

But Descartes had a mysterious and mystical side, as well. Almost certainly a member of the occult brotherhood of the Rosicrucians, he kept a secret notebook, now lost, most of which was written in code. After Descartes’s death, Gottfried Leibniz, inventor of calculus and one of the greatest mathematicians in history, moved to Paris in search of this notebook—and eventually found it in the possession of Claude Clerselier, a friend of Descartes. Leibniz called on Clerselier and was allowed to copy only a couple of pages—which, though written in code, he amazingly deciphered there on the spot. Leibniz’s hastily scribbled notes are all we have today of Descartes’s notebook, which has disappeared.

Why did Descartes keep a secret notebook, and what were its contents? The answers to these questions lead Amir Aczel and the reader on an exciting, swashbuckling journey, and offer a fascinating look at one of the great figures of Western culture.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66411 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-10
• Released on: 2006-10-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. What Aczel did for mathematician Fermat (Fermat's Last Theorem) he now does for Descartes in this splendid study about the French philosopher and mathematician (1596–1650) most famous for his paradigm-smashing declaration, "I think; therefore, I am." Part historical sketch, part biography and part detective story, Aczel's chronicle of Descartes's hidden work hinges on his lost secret notebook. Of 16 pages of coded manuscript, one and a half were copied in 1676 by fellow philosopher and mathematician Leibniz. For him, Descartes's inscription of the cryptic letters "GFRC" immediately revealed his association with the occult fraternity of the Rosicrucians—Leibniz was also a member. The notebook also revealed to Leibniz a discovery made by Descartes that would have transformed mathematics. As Aczel so deftly demonstrates, Descartes's mathematical theories were paths to an understanding the order and mystery of the cosmos, and he kept the notebook hidden because it contained a formula that—because it supported Copernicus's model of the solar system—Descartes feared would lead to his persecution by the Inquisition. Aczel lucidly explains the science, mystery and mathematics of Descartes, who has never been so lively as he is in the pages of this first-rate biography and social history.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Aczel's new episode from mathematical history concerns an enigmatic manuscript by Rene Descartes. It survives in a partial copy made by Gottfried Leibniz. The author makes the discovery of the reason Leibniz neglected to copy the manuscript in its entirety a method for enticing readers into his well-paced narrative. Framed by Descartes' languid lifestyle--living on inherited wealth, he slept late, dressed fashionably, and wandered about Europe--the story centers on Descartes' penchant for secrecy. Living in an age of intolerance and the Thirty Years' War, he had ample inducement to be cautious about his philosophical speculations, but desiring intellectual socializing, he joined, Aczel indicates, the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross. A secret society, the Rosicrucians furnish more a mystical mood than evidence in Aczel's mystery hunt, which pursues what was in that lost writing of Descartes. Laying clues, he describes the philosopher's interest in the geometry of cosmic space. Aczel's appeal, well earned from seven previous popular works, will draw fans to his new work. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Aczel joins the ranks of Roger Penrose, Stephen Pinker, Francis Crick, and others.” —Keith Devlin, author of Goodbye, Descartes: The End of Logic and the Search for a New Cosmology of the Mind

“Aczel maps the strange, beautiful byways of modern mathematical thought in ways that the layperson can grasp.” —Publishers Weekly


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

Discombobulating
I had read Amir Aczel's book on Fermat's Last Theorem, and I felt the same way, more confused than enlightened. The problem is that Mr. Aczel has a less than interesting style: the reading goes by very quickly and it just does not feel like one is gaining a lot of facts when one is gaining some facts. I thought Simon Singh did a better job with Fermat and I can't help but think that someone else can do a better job with this material.

It seems like Mr. Aczel has better things to do and more things to say at the end of the book, so he rushes to get to the good stuff only to reveal that there is very little good stuff.

Rene Descarte has always been a very interesting person to me. I had read a rather extensive biography of the man many years ago as an undergrad, so what Mr. Aczel had to bring to the story is interesting but not surprising. He does a pedantic job of relating the basics with some interesting tidbits thrown in, yet his style makes the interesting seem superficial.

The entire time, Mr. Aczel is moving towards the big mysterious reveal, the reason for yet another Descarte biography. He keeps hinting at a great earthshattering surprise, yet when it does come, the surprise is hardly surprising. The ingenious work that Descarte did in defiance of the church authorities of his day is indeed impressive but Mr. Aczel does not do the revelation justice. He never fully engages the reader in the development of the discovery and he fails to explain the difficulty of the mathematic is ignored altogether.

It is a good short treatment of Descarte's life, but there is no heft, very little mathematical detail, and nonexistent mystery in what is promised as a mysterious and revelatory book.

I guess this is a memoir?
James Frey has taught us that it's OK to call a work of non-fiction that isn't entirely true a memoir. So maybe this is book is also a memoir?

Aczel has received a number of positive reviews on this book, for example from a Boston newspaper and from two of Amazon's "Top Reviewers." But none of these people are actually competent to judge the contents of the book. All they can really do is summarize what's there and say that they enjoyed reading it.

As is well documented by other reviewers, this book is mostly just a biography and actually has very little about the secret notebook. Aczel does a reasonably good job of summarizing these secondary sources, but almost nothing else he says is true. For example, he says that Descartes invented the ruler and compass construction of the square root and says that the Greeks didn't know how to do this. If any real historian of science had looked over his manuscript, this boner never would have appeared in print. The publisher should be ashamed for propagating such misinformation. If they'd spent a little time and a couple of bucks having a real historian of mathematics review the manuscript, this sort of pathetic error could have been corrected. But the publisher and the author apparently have such contempt for the reading public that they don't care if they publish falsehoods. Or maybe they just didn't want to delay a pre-Christmas release date?

This isn't an isolated example. The book is loaded with nonsense, from matheamtical facts to dates to what the fifth element represented in Plato's cosmology. And the really pathetic thing is that almost none of these sophomoric errors has anything to do with the biography of Descartes or with the secret notebook. Aczel seems to have included them as window dressing or page padding or perhaps just a desire to appear learned. It's an old problem: the conceit that any semi-retired mathematician can "deduce" the history of mathematics the way he deduces a theorem, and he doesn't actually have to do any research.

Shame on Aczel and on Broadway publishers. Let the buyer beware!

Much ado, and by whom?
Previous person wonders why so many reviewers hype this book. Isn't it obvious? At least half the reviews here were written by the author himself! Check 'em out: no Real Name (tm) attribution, no other reviews written by the same person, and Google searches turn up no real person by that name in that city. And they all write in that same quirky, fawning style. Check out his other books on Amazon: it happens there, too. I guess he does it to counter negative reviews and to pump up his ratings. The funniest one here is "Michael Bernstein," who claims to have a Ph.D. in the history of science. Sorry, history of science is a small world and there are no Michael Bersteins in it.