Blaise Pascal
1623–1662 3 entries
Biography
Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor and religious thinker. Born in Clermont-Ferrand, he was taught at home by his father and showed an extraordinary gift for mathematics, writing an essay on conic sections at sixteen. At nineteen he built one of the first mechanical calculators, the Pascaline, to help his father with his tax accounts. With Pierre de Fermat he laid the foundations of probability theory, and his experiments on the vacuum and on air pressure led to Pascal’s law; the unit of pressure, the pascal, bears his name.
After a mystical experience on the night of 23 November 1654 he turned to religion and grew close to the Jansenists of Port-Royal. In their defence he wrote the Provincial Letters, a masterpiece of French prose and satire. He died at thirty-nine, leaving notes for a defence of the Christian faith that were published after his death as the Pensées.