BLAISE PASCAL

 Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a

French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and
Catholic theologian.
 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 1647, he rebutted
Aristotle's followers who insisted that nature abhors a
vacuum. Pascal's results caused many disputes before
being accepted.
 Early life and education

 Pascal, born on June 19, 1623, in Clermont-Ferrand, France,

was the third of four children and only son to Etienne and
Antoinette Pascal. His mother passed away when Pascal was just
a toddler and he became exceptionally close to his two sisters
Gilberte and Jacqueline. His father, Etienne, was a tax collector
and talented mathematician.
 In 1642, in an effort to ease his father's endless, exhausting
calculations, and recalculations, of taxes owed and paid (into
which work the young Pascal had been recruited), Pascal, not yet
19, constructed a mechanical calculator capable of addition and
subtraction, called Pascal's calculator or the Pascaline. Pascal
continued to make improvements to his design through the next
decade, and he refers to some 50 machines that were built to his
design.
An early Pascaline on display at the
Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris

 Contributions to mathematics
Pascal continued to influence mathematics
throughout his life. His Traité du triangle
arithmétique ("Treatise on the Arithmetical
Triangle") of 1654 described a convenient tabular
presentation for binomial coefficients, now called
Pascal's triangle. The triangle can also be
represented:
 Philosophy of mathematics

 Pascal's major contribution to the philosophy of mathematics

came with his De l'Esprit géométrique ("Of the Geometrical
Spirit"), originally written as a preface to a geometry textbook for
one of the famous Petites écoles de Port-Royal ("Little Schools of
Port-Royal").
 The work was unpublished until over a century after his death.
Here, Pascal looked into the issue of discovering truths, arguing
that the ideal of such a method would be to found all propositions
on already established truths. At the same time, however, he
claimed this was impossible because such established truths would
require other truths to back them up—fi rst principles, therefore,
cannot be reached.
 Based on this, Pascal argued that the procedure used in geometry
was as perfect as possible, with certain principles assumed and
other propositions developed from them. Nevertheless, there was
no way to know the assumed principles to be true.
 Contributions to
the physical sciences
 Pascal's work in the fields of the study of
hydrodynamics and hydrostatics centered on the
principles of hydraulic fluids. His inventions include
the hydraulic press (using hydraulic pressure to
multiply force) and the syringe. He proved that
hydrostatic pressure depends not on the weight of the
fluid but on the elevation difference. He demonstrated
this principle by attaching a thin tube to a barrel full
of water and filling the tube with water up to the level
of the third floor of a building. This caused the barrel
to leak, in what became known as Pascal's barrel
experiment.
An illustration of the (apocryphal)
Pascal's barrel experiment
 Legacy
In honour of his scientific contributions, the name Pascal has been given to the SI
unit of pressure, to a programming language, and Pascal's law (an important
principle of hydrostatics), and as mentioned above, Pascal's triangle and Pascal's
wager still bear his name.
Pascal's development of probability theory was his most influential contribution
to mathematics. Originally applied to gambling, today it is extremely important
in economics, especially in actuarial science.
In literature, Pascal is regarded as one of the most important authors of the
French Classical Period and is read today as one of the greatest masters of French
prose. His use of satire and wit influenced later polemicists. The content of his
literary work is best remembered for its strong opposition to the rationalism of
René Descartes and simultaneous assertion that the main countervailing
philosophy, empiricism, was also insufficient for determining major truths.
In France, prestigious annual awards, Blaise Pascal Chairs are given to
outstanding international scientists to conduct their research in the Ile de France
region. One of the Universities of Clermont-Ferrand, France – Université Blaise
Pascal – is named after him.