Editing René Descartes (section)

==== Mechanical philosophy ====
{{Main|Mechanism (philosophy)#Mechanical philosophy}}{{See also|#Army service|Corpuscularianism}}
The beginning of Descartes's interest in physics is accredited to the amateur scientist and mathematician [[Isaac Beeckman]], whom he met in 1618, and who was at the forefront of a new school of thought known as [[mechanical philosophy]]. With this foundation of reasoning, Descartes formulated many of his theories on [[Geometric mechanics|mechanical and geometric physics]].<ref name="Slowik">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Descartes' Physics |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/descartes-physics/ |access-date=1 October 2018 |last=Slowik |first=Edward |date=22 August 2017 |editor=Edward N. Zalta |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190318080638/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/descartes-physics/ |archive-date=18 March 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> It is said that they met when both were looking at a placard that was set up in the Breda marketplace, detailing a mathematical problem to be solved. Descartes asked Beeckman to translate the problem from Dutch to French.{{sfn|Gaukroger|1995|page=Chapter 3}} In their following meetings Beeckman interested Descartes in his corpuscularian approach to mechanical theory, and convinced him to devote his studies to a mathematical approach to nature.<ref name="porter" />{{sfn|Gaukroger|1995|page=Chapter 3}} In 1628, Beeckman also introduced him to many of [[Galileo]]'s ideas.<ref name="porter">Harold J. Cook, in ''The Scientific Revolution in National Context'', [[Roy Porter]], [[Mikuláš Teich]], (eds.), Cambridge University Press, 1992, pages 127–129</ref> Together, they worked on [[free fall]], [[catenary|catenaries]], [[conic section]]s, and [[fluid statics]]. Both believed that it was necessary to create a method that thoroughly linked mathematics and physics.<ref name="Durandin" />