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Descartes Letter Found, Therefore It Is

24 February 2010
The story of a spectacular robbery and its happy ending 170 years later is published in the New York Times, by Patricia Cohen

Patricia Cohen


"It was the Great Train Robbery of French intellectual life: thousands of treasured documents that vanished from the Institut de France in the mid-1800s, stolen by an Italian mathematician. Among them were 72 letters by René Descartes, the founding genius of modern philosophy and analytic geometry.It was the Great Train Robbery of French intellectual life: thousands of treasured documents that vanished from the Institut de France in the mid-1800s, stolen by an Italian mathematician. Among them were 72 letters by René Descartes, the founding genius of modern philosophy and analytic geometry."

The story of a spectacular robbery and its happy ending 170 years later is published in the New York Times: Descartes Letter Found, Therefore It Is, by Patricia Cohen