--- Pierre Paquette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > John, > > Ren� Descartes's father was councillor for the Parliament in Brittany > (Bretagne; the one in France). The French "Des" particle meaning "of > the", > it implies that the name might have originally been "Des Cartes", "Of > The > Maps", a little like the German "Von" is. Those names were originally > reserved for the noble families, hence the reference you found to a > "good > family". > > It is indeed possible, as my first paragraph implies, that the names > comes > from an early cartographer ancestor. However, I would be surprised if > THAT > is what led him to devise a coordinate system for maps.
Surnames developed at different times in different places, and given that family businesses/trades were more likely to be handed down from from father to son for generations back then, I thought it was possible that the family might have still been in the map business (if they ever were) during his time. But the sources I've seen all say his family was high-ranking, so the name was probably established long before. >My reference > (http://mper.chez.tiscali.fr/auteurs/Descart.html, in French) does > not seem > to state a reason for his works. He was interested in math and science just at the time that Copernicus and Galileo had shown that the sun was not the center of the universe. That led to a general interest in "reference frames". It's hard to keep different reference frames straight if you don't asign numbers to the points in them. He also developed the idea that a curve in space (or more simply, in a plane) was equivalent to an equation of the form y=f(x), or more generally, c=f(x,y). One modern meaning of "chart" is "graph". > One thing for sure, we will never know if that was the case or not! True, it would be very difficult to dig up hard facts on this. At the very least, it's a remarkable coincidence. -John (whose last name comes from Mathghamhan, grandson of Irish High King Brian Boru. "Mathghamhan" means "bear" in Gaelic, and I _am_ rather hairy ;) > (On a personal note: my last name derives from bad transcriptions of > the > name Pasquier, itself derived from P�quier, which is the place, on a > farmland for example, used to feed horses. Apparently my distant > ancestors > would have bred horses. Thing is, just because my name comes from > there, or > alternately from a derivation of P�ques ("Easter"), doesn't mean I > feel > compelled to raising horses or to celebrate Easter! ;-) > > BTW I'm glad to see that my solution to the horizon problem is good! > ;-� > However, I would have loved a single-button-click one! ;-) > > � une de ces nuits� / See you in the dark! > > Pierre Paquette > www.starpete.tk > Groupe d'astronomes amateurs Polaris > www.astropolaris.ca > > > > -----Original Message----- > Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 01:11:39 -0800 (PST) > From: John Mahony <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: "Cartes" etymology > > > --- Pierre Paquette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > My question now... > > Is there a way to NOT display the horizon in horizontal projection? > > The > > closest I found is to set it to black and leave the "Invisible" > > option > > unchecked in the "Chart appearances", but that leaves a (white) > line > > where > > the horizon is, though I can see the stars through it. > > I was trying to do that just last night, and your solution is better > than mine. > > > P.S. To answer John Mahony's question: the French word "cartes" > comes > > from > > the Latin word "charta", meaning "paper", and apparently it's the > > case for > > the English word "chart" as well. > > Hmm, still seems like quite a coincidence. Maybe the meaning shifted > from "paper" to the more specific modern meaning, due to him? > > I thought maybe I had the derivation backwards and maybe his family > was > in the mapmaking business (are French surnames sometimes derived from > an occupation, as in the English "Baker" or "Smith"?) That could > explain how he was led to develop the idea of a coordinate system. > But > then I found an interesting statement in an online biography > <http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Descartes/RouseBall/RB_Descarte > s.html>: > > "His father, who, as the name implies, was of good family..." > > I'm not sure how to interpret that. > > An etymology at > <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=chart&searchmode=term> > says that the meaning of chart as "map" goes back to at least 1571, > just before Des Cartes bas born. > > -John > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.1 - Release Date: 2005-01-19 > > > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.7.1 - Release Date: 2005-01-19 > > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! 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