Sleeping Habits
I THINK, THEREFORE I THINK I'LL STAY IN BED :))
Scientists who hate to get up early can point to the sad fate of
Rene Descartes (1596-1650), the father of analytic geometry. Descartes
showed genius even as a schoolboy, when he succeeded in
convincing his Jesuit schoolmasters that he should never be asked to
get out of bed before 11. This custom he followed throughout a long
and busy military career, his superior officers being no more able than
his teachers to interfere with his peaceful morning habits. Descartes
later claimed that all his great scientific and philosophical works were
composed during the mornings he spent in bed. (So, no doubt, was his
treatise on the art of dueling, the only one of all his books that the
Catholic Church did not proscribe after his death.)
This happy life was changed in 1649, when Queen Christina of
Sweden invited him to Stockholm to instruct her in geometry. Unfortunately,
her royal schedule demanded that these teaching sessions
take place at 5 A.M. The shock of getting up so early and walking
through the frigid winter darkness to her palace gave him pneumonia,
and he died on February 11, 1650.
.Unexpected places give you unexpected returns