Erik-Jan Bos, a philosopher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, unearthed research gold with an Internet search. In putting together a critical edition of René Descartes' correspondence, due out in 2014, he discovered a stolen, never-before-published letter from the seventeenth-century French philosopher and mathematician. In the run-up to Descartes' 416th birthday on 31 March, Bos discusses the hazards of chasing him down.
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Interview by Stephen Ornes
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Ornes, S. Q&A: Descartes' decipherer. Nature 483, 540 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/483540a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/483540a