I had heard this story before, but always figured it was like the story of Newton and the apple. Since it actually appeared in my math book, it got a bit more credence in my eyes. Since #2 found it hilarious, I'm putting it in my diary.
Rene Descartes, a 17th century French philosopher, is credited with giving us an indispensable method of locating a point on a plane. It seems Descartes, who was lying in bed ill, was watching a fly crawl on his ceiling near a corner of the room. It occurred to him that the location of the fly on the ceiling could be described by determining its distance from the two adjacent walls.
Thus we get graphs. No one yet has given me a valid reason as to why they are numbered counter clockwise. That will go into the Oh Well category.
When we asked our teacher that since we are boycotting all things French, if we could just skip this chapter, she laughed at us.
Go figure.