Locked in a stove-heated room to escape the winter cold
On November 10, 1619, Descartes shut himself in a small stove-heated room to escape the cold and spent the day in intense meditation. That night he had three vivid dreams that he interpreted as a divine sign to dedicate his life to the search for truth, founding all knowledge on a single unified method modeled on mathematics, the insight that led him to analytic geometry and to applying mathematical reasoning to philosophy.
