Last night I taught my class about Cartesian coordinates and how to graph linear equations. The Cartesian coordinate system was invented by the French philosopher and mathematician, René Descartes.
That, of course, led me to this joke:
There was this magnificent mathematical horse. You could teach it arithmetic, which it learned with no difficulty, algebra was a breeze, it could even prove theorems in euclidean geometry, but when you tried to teach it analytic geometry, it would rear back on its hind legs, kick ferociously neigh loudly and make violent head motions in resistance.
The moral of this story is that you can’t put Descartes before the horse.