Blaise Pascal (nonfiction)

Blaise Pascal.

Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher.

He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defense of the scientific method.

In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines. After three years of effort and 50 prototypes, he built 20 finished machines (called Pascal's calculators and later Pascalines) over the following 10 years, establishing him as one of the first two inventors of the mechanical calculator.

On September 19, 1648, Pascal performed experiments to confirm the theory of atmospheric pressure and the existence of a vacuum.

Pascal wrote to Fermat on July 29, 1654, questioning Fermat's solution to the 'problem of the points,' a probability problem.

On October 27, 1654, Pascal wote to Pierre de Fermat, praising him for his solution to the Problem of the Points, about which they had exchanged seven previous letters.

Pascal was an important mathematician, helping create two major new areas of research: he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of 16, and later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science.

Following Galileo Galilei and Torricelli, in 1646, he rebutted Aristotle's followers who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum. Pascal's results caused many disputes before being accepted.

Fiction cross-reference

• Crimes against mathematical constants
• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles
• Mathematics

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Pierre de Fermat (nonfiction)
• Galileo Galilei (nonfiction)
• Jansenism (nonfiction) - a theological movement, primarily in France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace and predestination. The theological center of the movement was the convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs Abbey, which was a haven for writers including Pascal.
• Mathematics (nonfiction)
• Pascal's calculator (nonfiction)
• Evangelista Torricelli (nonfiction)

External links

• Blaise Pascal @ Wikipedia