Discourse on Method and the MeditationsRen Descartes was a central figure in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. In his Discourse on Method, he outlined the contrast between mathematics and experimental sciences, and the extent to which each one can achieve certainty. Drawing on his own work in geometry, optics, astronomy, and physiology, Descartes developed the hypothetical method that characterises modern science, and this soon came to replace the traditional techniques