Pascal


Blaise Pascal - 1623 - 1662

Blaise Pascal was a very influential French mathematician and philosopher who contributed to many areas of mathematics. He worked on conic sections and projective geometry and in correspondence with Fermat he laid the foundations for the theory of probability.

Blaise Pascal's father had unorthodox educational views and decided to teach his son himself. Étienne Pascal decided that Blaise was not to study mathematics before the age of 15 and all mathematics texts were removed from their house.

Blaise however, his curiosity raised by this, started to work on geometry himself at the age of 12. He discovered that the sum of the angles of a triangle are two right angles and, when his father found out, he relented and allowed Blaise a copy of Euclid.

Pascal invented the first digital calculator to help his father with his work collecting taxes. He worked on it for three years between 1642 and 1645. The device, called the Pascaline, resembled a mechanical calculator of the 1940s.

This, almost certainly, makes Pascal the second person to invent a mechanical calculator for Schickard has manufactured in 1624.

Events of 1646 were very significant for the Pascal. In that year his father injured his leg and had to recuperate in his house. He was looked after by two young brothers from a religious movement just outside Rouen.

They had a profound effect on the young Pascal and he became deeply religious.

Pascal died at the age of 39 in intense pain after a malignant growth in his stomach spread to the brain.

 

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