Blaise Pascal :: essays research papers

Blaise PascalBlaise Pascal was born in Clermont France on June 19, 1623, and died in Paris onAug. 19, 1662. His father, a local judge at Clermont, and also a man with ascientific reputation, moved the family to Paris in 1631, partly to presue hisown scientific studies, partly to carry on the education of his only son, whohad already displayed exceptional ability. Blaise was kept at home in order toensure his not being overworked, and it was direct that his education shouldbe at first confined to the study of langu shape ups, and should not include anymathematics. Young Pascal was very curious, one day at the jump on of twelve whilestudying with his tutor, he asked about the study of geometry. afterwards this hebegan to give up his play time to persue the study of geometry. After only a fewweeks he had mastered many properties of figures, in particular the propositionthat the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two decent angles. Hisfather noticed his sons ability in math ematics and gave him a copy of EuclidssElements, a book which Pascal read and soon mastered. At the young age offourteen he was admitted to the weekly meetings of Roberval, Mersenne, Mydorge,and other French geometricians. At the age of sixteen he wrote an essay on conicsections and in 1641 at the age of 18 he construced the first arithmeticalmachine, an instrument with metal dials on the front on which the numbers wereentered. Once the entries had been completed the answer would be displayed insm whole windows on the top of the device. This device was improved eight yearslater. His correspondence with Fermat about this time shows that he was thenthurning his attention to analytical geometry and physics. At this time herepeated Torricellis experiments, by which the pressure of the atmosphere couldbe estimated as a weight, and he confirmed his theory of the cause ofbarometrical variations by obtaining at the same instant readings at differentaltitudes on the hill of Puy-de-Dme. A str ange thing about Pascal was that in1650 he stoped all he reasearched and his favorite studies to being the study ofreligion, or as he sais in his Pensees, "contemplate the greatness and themisery of man." Also about this time he encouraged the younger of his twosisters to enther the Port Royal society. In 1653 after the death of his fatherhe returned to his old studies again, and made several experiments on the