3587 Descartes & René Descartes - Place Anatole France (Tours, France) - Extraterrestrial Locations on Waymarking.com

Main-belt asteroid 3587 Descartes (1981 RK5) bears name of one of the most influential philosopher, thinker and mathematician of the Baroque Europe - René Descartes. The given coordinates mark his statue, located in Place Anatole France in Tours.

Asteroid 3587 Descartes (1981 RK5) was discovered by Russian/Ukrainian astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravleva at Crimean Astrophysical Observatory on September 8, 1981.

The René Descartes statue, 3 m high (approx. 1.8× life size) and sculpted from white marble, is copy of bronze statue of Descartes from The Hague. The author of the original was French sculptor Alfred Emile O'Hara comte de Nieuwerkerke. On the upper part of the statue's pedestal is carved Descartes' the best known philosophical statement "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am).

René Descartes (March 31st, 1596 – February 41th, 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy", and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematics is equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system — allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes in a two-dimensional coordinate system — was named after him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution. [wiki]