Biography

Blaise Pascal, the prominent French scientist was born in Clemont-Ferrand in 1623. He contributed significally in the fields of mathematics, physics, philosophy and theology as well.

Pascal was a child prodigy, taught by his father with unorthodox educational methods. Pascal started to work on geometry in his early childhood, and at the age of 12 he had already „rediscovered” most of Euclid’s rules. At the age of 15 he presented a number of projective geometry theorems, including Pascal’s mystic hexagon, and when he was 16 he published his first work, Essay of Conic Sections. In 1642 he was only 19 years old, when he invented the oldest surviving mechanical calculator with an automatic decimal position carry out method (Pascaline). At the age of 25 he proved by test measurements, that the pressure of the atmosphere decreases with the heights, and deducted that a vacum existed above the atmosphere. He was 30 when he discovered the basic law of hydrostatics, called later as the Pascal’s law, (or Pascal’s principle), which he published and explained in the Treatise on the Equilibrium of Liquids. In 1654, at the age of 31 he conducted his studies on the Pascal’s triangle and it’s relationship to probabilities. Altrough Pascal was not the first to discover and study the triangle, his work in the Treatise on the Arithmetical Triangle and the study of the relation to binomial coefficients was the most important on this topic. In summer of 1654, in correspondence with Ferrant he laid the foundation for the theory of probability. By the end of the year 1654 Pascal underwent several physical and mental shocks, and in a weak state of health he pledged his life to Christianity. In 1656-57 he published anonymous works on religious topics, eighteen Provincial Letters. Pascal’s most famous work in philosophy is Pensées, a collection of personal toughts on human suffering and faith in God, writen in 1656-58.

He died in 1662 at the age of 39 in intense pain, after a malignant growth in his stomach, spread to the brain.

A few samples of his scholarly activities:

• Pascal’s calculator (Pascaline)
• Pascal’s triangle
• Pascal’s law (Pascal’s Principle)