Cartesian coordinate system

Descartes's dilemma

The Cartesian plane is named after René Descartes, a philosopher, mathematician and scientist from the 1600s. He used the number plane to connect geometry to algebra and created a new area of mathematics called analytic geometry.

The story is told that Descartes often lay in bed thinking about maths and philosophy. One morning he watched flies moving across the ceiling tiles.

'How can I describe the position of the flies?' he wondered. Then he realised he could use the points where the tiles intersected.