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 Pascal's statue at the Louvre |
Blaise Pascal (June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. Important contributions by Pascal to the natural sciences include the construction of mechanical calculators, considerations on probability theory, the study of fluids, and clarification of concepts such as pressure and vacuum. Following a mystical experience in 1654, he fell away from mathematics and physics and devoted himself to reflection and writing about philosophy and theology. He suffered from ill-health throughout his life and died two months after his 39th birthday.
Family
Born in Clermont, in the Auvergne region of France, Blaise Pascal lost his mother at the age of three. Beginning in 1631, his father, Étienne Pascal (1588-1651), devoted himself entirely to the education of his son, who showed extraordinary mental and intellectual abilities. Blaise Pascal was the brother of Jacqueline Pascal and they had two other sisters, only one of whom, Gilberte, survived past childhood.
Contributions to science
At age 16, Pascal produced a treatise on conic sections which included an important original result now known as Pascal's theorem.
At age 18 he constructed a mechanical calculator, *Pascal's Calculator capable of addition and subtraction for his father who was a tax collector (the Zwinger museum, in Dresden, Germany exhibits one of his original mechanical calculators).
In 1653 Pascal wrote his Traité du triangle arithmétique in which he described a convenient tabular presentation for binomial coefficients, the "arithmetical triangle", now called Pascal's triangle.
His notable contributions to the fields of the study of fluids (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 clarified concepts such as pressure (for which his name has been given to the SI unit of pressure) and vacuum.
In 1654, prompted by a friend interested in gambling problems, he corresponded with Fermat on the subject, and from that collaboration was born the mathematical theory of probabilities. He later used a probabilistic argument, Pascal's Wager, to justify belief in God and a virtuous life.
In honor to his scientific contributions the name pascal has been given to a unit of pressure and to a programming language, as well as to many mathematical concepts, such as Pascal's Triangle.
Religious faith, theology and philosophy
In 1646 Pascal experienced a sort of "first conversion," and began in the course of the following year to write on theological subjects. But he fell away from this initial religious engagement and experienced the early 1650s as a "worldly period."
In 1654 he was involved in an accident at the Neuilly bridge where the horses plunged over the parapet but the carriage survived. [1] Fifteen days later, on November 23, 1654, between ten-thirty and twelve-thirty at night, Pascal had an intense religious vision and immediately recorded the experience in a brief note to himself, which began: "Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers . . ." and concluded by quoting Psalms 118:16: "I will not forget thy word. Amen." He seems carefully to have sewn this document into his coat and always transferred it when he changed clothes; it was only discovered by chance by a servant after his death (Pascal, Oeuvres complètes [Paris: Seuil, 1963], p. 618). During his lifetime, Pascal was often mistakenly thought to be a libertine, and dismissed as an individual who had an intense religious conversion only immediately before his death.
His belief and religious commitment revitalized, Pascal devoted himself to a memorable attack on casuistry, a popular ethical method used by Catholic thinkers in the early modern period (especially the Jesuits). Pascal denounced casuistry as the mere use of complex reasoning to justify moral laxity. His writings on this subject, a defense of the Jansenist Antoine Arnauld, appeared as the Lettres provinciales , or "Provincial Letters." This work incensed Louis XIV, who ordered in 1660 that the book be shredded and burnt.
Pascal's most influential theological work, the Pensées, was unfinished by his death. It was to have been a sustained and coherent examination of and defense of the Christian faith. A version of the detached notes for that book appeared in print in 1670 (the Port-Royal edition) and soon became a classic. Several attempts have been made to arrange the notes systematically; notable editions include those of Brunschvicg and of Lafuma. (See, however, the monumental edition of his Oeuvres complètes (1964-1991), which is known as the Tercententary Edition and was realized by Jean Mesnard; this edition reviews the dating, history, and critical bibliography of each of Pascal's texts.)
Pascal died in Paris on August 19, 1662, and was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont.
See also
Reference
External links