His father, a man of fortune, went with his children 1631 to live in paris. Etienne decided that blaise was not to study mathematics until age 15. Pascals 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 generalising the work of. Inventor, mathematician, physicist and theological writer blaise pascal, born on june 19, 1623 in clermontferrand. Will durant hailed the pensees as the most eloquent book in french prose. Pascal s earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators, the study of fluids, and.
Blaise pascals conversion 16011700 church history timeline. Young pascal was taught latin and greek as well as history, geography, and. Discussion of the pascaline, its history, mechanism, surviving. Its strength, however, is also the book s weakness. At the young age of twelve, he was drawing geometric figures on the floor of his playroom and it is said that he discovered, on his own, the fact that the interior angles of a triangle add up to the sum of two right angles euclids 32nd proposition of book i. Voltaire declared the collected letters to be the bestwritten book yet to.
The french mathematician, theologian, physicist and manofletters, blaise pascal, was born june 19 at clermontferrand, the son of the local president of the court of exchequer. Pascal, blaise internet encyclopedia of philosophy. During this period, he began to collect ideas and to draft notes for a book in defence of. He is famous for the philosophical theorem known as pascal s wager, and for the remark that history would have been different had cleopatras nose been differently shaped.
The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in first. Blaise pascal 16231662, mathematician, physicist, inventor, and religious thinker was a man at odds with his time. His earliest and best known work was as a mathematician of the first order, especially in the areas of projective geometry and probability theory, and he made important contributions to the natural and applied sciences and wrote in defense of the scientific method. The book addresses the myriad units of measurement that have arisen through the ages, from weights used by ancient cultures to. Blaise pascal was a french philosopher, mathematician, scientist, inventor, and. Blaise pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of descartes, was a gifted mathematician and physicist, but it is his unfinished apologia for the christian religion upon which his reputation now rests. On this episode of 5 minutes in church history, dr. French philosopher and scientist blaise pascal was born on june 19, 1623, in clermontferrand, france. Born in 1623 in clermont, france, blaise pascal is one of the most well known. It is a triangular set of numbers that contains within it a lot of interesting patterns, like triangular numbers and the fibonacci sequence. Pascal, the name of a programming language and a unit for measuring internal pressure, were both named after blaise pascal.
Inventor, mathematician, physicist and theological writer blaise pascal, born on june 19, 1623 in clermontferrand, france, was the third of four children and only son. He lost his mother, antoinette begon, at the age of three. Pascal s mother died when he was 3, and his father moved the family from clermontferrand, france, to paris, where he homeschooled blaise and his sister. Blaise pascal 1623 1662 was a french philosopher, mathematician and scientist of the age of reason. Blaise pascal books list of books by author blaise pascal. Probability and statistics, the branches of mathematics concerned with the laws governing random events, including the collection, analysis, interpretation, and display of numerical data. His father, etienne, was a civil servant and served as kings counselor. Blaise pascal biography life, family, children, story, death, history. Marvin oconnells biography on blaise pascal is to be commended for the background it paints of the period in which this enigmatic figure lived and wrote. Pascal was far from the first to study this triangle. Stephen nichols discusses this french mathematician, physicist, philosopher, and theologian. Blaise pascal was a french mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and catholic theologian.
Blaise pascal was an influential mathematical writer, a master of the french language, and a. Blaise pascal has 348 books on goodreads with 36869 ratings. Blaise pascal s account of the cognitive consequences of the fall is clearly set out by william wood in the first book on pascal s theology to appear in english in more than forty years. A biography on blaise pascal blaise pascal was born in france in the region of auvergne in the town of clermontferrand in 1623. In 1640, at age sixteen, pascal wrote a book, essay on conics. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father.
Blaise pascal, the precociously brilliant contemporary of descartes, was a gifted mathematician and physicist, but it is his unfinished apologia for the. Pascal was born in clermontferrand, which is in frances auvergne region. Biography of blaise pascal, inventor of the calculator. His father, struck by this display of ability, gave him a copy of euclids elements, a book which pascal read with. Oconnell fills many of the two hundred pages with descriptions of towns and times, thus limiting material on the man himself. View the list the present letter is a very long one, simply because i had no leisure to make it shorter. Blaise pascal was a french mathematician, physicist and religious philosopher who laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities. Blaise pascal, born june 19, 1623, clermontferrand, francedied august 19, 1662, paris, french mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher, and master of prose. Churchinquisition demanding supremacy over all including reason peeks through the cracks in the lines here but historical truth is a largely a left behind casualty. If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world. He came from a catholic family, not surprising since france was known in the middle ages as the eldest daughter of the church coulumbe, 2012.
The optimism of the enlightenment and the belief among philosophers and scientists that the universe was both discoverable and rational made them feel invincible. Pascal had a religious conversion in the 1650s and devoted himself to religion instead of science. Pascals introduction to barometric experiments occurred by chance. There is a great difference between a book which an individual writes, and publishes to a nation, and a book which itself creates a nation.
Blaise s father, etienne, oversaw blaise s education at home. This page contains a list of the best books on or by blaise pascal. This treatise is a complete outline of a system of hydrostatics, the first in the history of science, it embodies his most distinctive and important contribution to. Woods central claim is that for pascal, the fall is a fall into duplicity. In 2018, the first of three volumes of the book encyclopaedia of historical metrology, weights, and measures, was published. Interesting as part of a wider reading on broader controversies, for historical background, and the appreciation of literature. Blaise was three years old at the time and had two sisters, gilberte and jacqueline. List of books and articles about blaise pascal online. Studying under the direction of his father, a civil servant, pascal showed great precocity, especially in mathematics and science. The persian mathematician alkaraji had produced something very similar as early as the 10th century, and the triangle is called yang huis triangle in china after the th century chinese mathematician, and tartaglias triangle in italy after the eponymous 16th century italian. Blaise pascal christian history christianity today.
Blaise pascal was born at clermontferrand, france, on june 19, 1623. Blaise pascal on duplicity, sin, and the fall william. Kreeft spends the introductory chapter providing some historical background on blaise, which is laudable, since few know much of him besides his being a 17th century mathematician. French mathematician and physicist blaise pascal, though raised in the heyday of enlightenment thought, found reason inadequate. For christians, the account of pascals conversion is particularly moving as well as pascals immediate response to share the gospel. A short history of probability from calculus, volume ii by tom m. Blaise pascal by individual philosopher philosophy. Just to be clear, there is no single best book on pascal. The four best books on or by blaise pascal the daily idea. The best book for you will depend on your preferred learning style and the amount of time that you want to spend reading about pascal. Pascal had two sisters, the younger jacqueline and the elder gilberte.
Blaise pascal math the story of mathematics a history. Pascals development of probability theory was his most influential. We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put some thing before us to prevent us seeing it. Blaise pascal s conversion whenever we see a genius who has many talentsleonardo da vinci, thomas jefferson, or benjamin franklin, for instance,we call that person a renaissance man. This book has also cleared up a lot of the background concerning pascal s writings. The concept of pascal s wager stems from a portion. Blaise pascal 1623 1662 mactutor history of mathematics. He laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities, formulated what came to be known as pascal s principle of pressure, and propagated a religious doctrine that. At age 12, blaise s curiosity in geometry grew as he rediscovered many of euclids elements on. Of special interest to home schooling families, this book recounts the recognition by pascals father of his remarkable talents and the provisions he made for his sons education one of the earliest and most successful examples of home schooling.
Kreeft reorders the pensees from what is believed to be pascal s intended order, but i think the decision makes sense, since kreeft explains the structure and his. According to his sister gilberte, pascal discovered geometry on his own. Blaise pascal biography life, family, children, story. Blaise pascal laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities, formulated what came to be known as pascals principle of pressure, and propagated a religious doctrine that taught the experience of god through the heart rather than. Blaise pascal was born june 19, 1623 in clermont, auvergne, france.