February 27

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Better Than News

Beyond Plausible

In Other Words

Are You Sure

• ... that the Pascaline is a pioneering calculating machine designed and constructed by Blaise Pascal in order to reduce the laborious arithmetical calculations required by his father's work as supervisor of taxes in Rouen; and that Pascal's calculator was especially successful in the design of its carry mechanism, which adds 1 to 9 on one dial, and when it changes from 9 to 0, carries 1 to the next dial, an innovation which made each digit independent of the state of the others, enabling multiple carries to rapidly cascade from one digit to another regardless of the machine's capacity; and that Pascal was the first to shrink and adapt for his purpose a lantern gear, used in turret clocks and water wheels, which could resist the strength of any operator input with very little added friction?

Topic of the Day

Jack Nicholson