Blaise Pascal :: essays research papers

Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont France on June 19, 1623 to Etienne Pascal. His mother died when he was only when 3. He was the third of four children and the only boy. He was described as a man of small stature, poor health, loud spoken, somewhat overbearing, precious, obstinately persevering, a perfectionist, highly pugnacious yet seeking to be diminished and meek. Pascals father had somewhat unorthodox views on education, so he opinionated to teach his son himself. He forbade any mathematic teachings or material to be given to him and had any such texts removed from their house. Blaise became engulfed with curiosity due to this rule. He started to work with geometry on his own at the age of 12. He find that the sum of the three angles of a triangle is equivalent to two proper angles. When his father discovered this he then allowed Blaise a copy of Euclid. At the age of 14 Blaise began accompanying his father to Mersennes meetings. Mersenne was a member of a religious orde r of Minims. His cell held many meetings for the likes of Gassendi, Roberval, Carcavi, Auzout, Mydorge, Mylon, Desargues and others. By the time he was 15 Blaise admired the work of Desargues greatly. At 16 Pascal presented a single piece of paper at a Mersennes meeting in June 1639. It held many of his geometry theorems, including his mystic hexagon. In December 1639 he and his family left genus Paris and moved to Rouen where his father Etienne was appointed tax collector for Upper Normandy. in short after settling down in Rouen his Essay on conical Sections was published in February of 1640. It was his outgrowth great work. Pascal also invented the first digital calculator to aid his father in his tax put in duties. For three years he worked 1642 - 1545. Dubbed the Pascaline, it resembled a mechanical calculator of the 1940s. This virtually assuredly makes Pascal second only to Shickard who manufactured the first in 1624. Pascal faced problems with the design of the calculator due to the design of french currency at the time. There were 12 deniers in a sol, and 20 sols in a livre. Therefore there were 240 deniers in a livre. and then Pascal had to deal with more technical problems to work with this odd expressive style of dividing by 240. Yet the currency system remained the same in France until 1799, further Britains similar system lasted until 1971.