(A prequel to Galois Field of Dreams)
The opening of Descartes' Dream ,
by Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh—
"The modern world,
our world of triumphant rationality,
began on November 10, 1619,
with a revelation and a nightmare."
For a revelation, see Battlefield Geometry.
For a nightmare, see Joyce's Nightmare.
Some later work of Descartes—
From "What Descartes knew of mathematics in 1628,"
by David Rabouin, CNRS-Univ. Paris Diderot,
Historia Mathematica , Volume 37, Issue 3,
Contexts, emergence and issues of Cartesian geometry,
August 2010, pages 428–459 —
Fig. 5. How to represent the difference between white, blue, and red
according to Rule XII [from Descartes, 1701, p. 34].
The 4×4 array of Descartes appears also in the Battlefield Geometry posts.
For its relevance to Galois's field of dreams, see (for instance) block designs.