Jupiter, Venus, Anchises, Trojan Mount Ida,  Aeneus, Rene Descartes, La Geometrie, Newton's Principia

THE MYTH
Though Jupiter never lay with his adopted daughter Venus, the magic of her girdle put him in constant temptation, so he decided to humiliate her by making her fall desperately in love with a mortal. This was the handsome Anchises, king of the Dardinians, grandson of Illus. One night when Anchises lay asleep in his herdsman’s hut on Trojan Mount Ida, Venus visited him in the guise of a Phyrgian princess, clad in a dazzlingly red robe, and lay with him while bees buzzed drowsily about them. When they parted at dawn, she revealed her identity and made him promise not to tell anyone that she had slept with him. Anchises was horrified to learn that he had uncovered the nakedness of a goddess, and begged her to spare his life. She assured him that he had nothing to fear, and that their son, Aeneus, would be famous.

THE MATH
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Descartes presented the fundamental concepts of coordinate geometry in La Geometrie, (1637), which, along with Newton's Principia, is one of the most influential scientific texts of the 17th century. By representing a point by a pair of real numbers, and straight lines and curves by equations, Descartes provided a link between geometry and algebra.

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Jupiter, Venus, Anchises, Trojan Mount Ida,  Aeneus, Rene Descartes, La Geometrie, Newton's Principia