SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH AN INSECT'S EYES

摘要

Flies are usually treated with disdain. Most commonly associated with spreading disease, they are at best considered simply annoying. Conversely, flies have also inspired mankind for centuries. An early report along these lines dates back to the seventeenth century, when the young Rene Descartes, while lying sick in bed, observed a fly walking along the ceiling of his room. Thinking about how he could describe the path of the fly in quantitative terms, he came up with what have become known as Cartesian coordinates.