Blaise Pascal Report
Blaise Pascal
“There are two types of minds - the mathematical, and what might be called the intuitive. The former arrives at its views slowly, but they are firm and rigid; the latter is endowed with greater flexibility and applies itself simultaneously to the dive.” From childhood he was a scientific prodigy. Just from this quote of his you can tell that even his mind in itself can fathom things that none of us even think about on a daily basis. Blaise Pascal was born June 19, 1623 in Clermont, France. He was third born out of four children and was Etienne Pascal’s, the father, only son. But at only three years old, Blaise’s mother died, leaving the four children up to Etienne Pascal. In 1632 the Pascal family moved to Paris, France. Blaise’s father had unorthodox educational views and decided to teach his son himself. He said that Blaise was not allowed to study math or science before the age of fifteen. But of course it was impossible to keep his son’s mind away from those two subjects. At just age twelve he started to work on geometry by himself, and before long he realized that the sum of the angles of a triangle are two right angles. When his father found out about this, he gave in and allowed Blaise to have a copy of Euclid. At age fourteen, Blaise started to attend his father’s meetings. While there he met Girard Desargues and at age fifteen came to admire his work. In June of 1639, Blaise Pascal came in with a piece of paper holding most of his mind’s geometric theorems, including Pascal’s mystic hexagon. That winter, Pascal’s family moved once again, this time to Rouen, France. Etienne Pascal was given a tax collector job for Upper Normandy. Shortly after moving, Blaise published Essay on Conic Sections in February of 1640. Pascal invented the first digital calculator to help his father with tax collecting. He worked on it for an agonizing three years between 1642 and 1645. He named his creation, the Pascaline. He ran into problems though because
“There are two types of minds - the mathematical, and what might be called the intuitive. The former arrives at its views slowly, but they are firm and rigid; the latter is endowed with greater flexibility and applies itself simultaneously to the dive.” From childhood he was a scientific prodigy. Just from this quote of his you can tell that even his mind in itself can fathom things that none of us even think about on a daily basis. Blaise Pascal was born June 19, 1623 in Clermont, France. He was third born out of four children and was Etienne Pascal’s, the father, only son. But at only three years old, Blaise’s mother died, leaving the four children up to Etienne Pascal. In 1632 the Pascal family moved to Paris, France. Blaise’s father had unorthodox educational views and decided to teach his son himself. He said that Blaise was not allowed to study math or science before the age of fifteen. But of course it was impossible to keep his son’s mind away from those two subjects. At just age twelve he started to work on geometry by himself, and before long he realized that the sum of the angles of a triangle are two right angles. When his father found out about this, he gave in and allowed Blaise to have a copy of Euclid. At age fourteen, Blaise started to attend his father’s meetings. While there he met Girard Desargues and at age fifteen came to admire his work. In June of 1639, Blaise Pascal came in with a piece of paper holding most of his mind’s geometric theorems, including Pascal’s mystic hexagon. That winter, Pascal’s family moved once again, this time to Rouen, France. Etienne Pascal was given a tax collector job for Upper Normandy. Shortly after moving, Blaise published Essay on Conic Sections in February of 1640. Pascal invented the first digital calculator to help his father with tax collecting. He worked on it for an agonizing three years between 1642 and 1645. He named his creation, the Pascaline. He ran into problems though because
Bibliography: Internet Source- Ball, Rouse. “Blaise Pascal Biography.” http://thocp.net/biographies/pascal_blaise.html. Rouse Ball, 21/11/2010.web. Book Source (Encyclopedia)- “PASCAL, Blaise.” Norwich to Peyote Edition. Volume 18. New York, NY: Funk and Wagnallis, 1972. Print. Book- Bruno, Leonard. Math and Mathematicians. I-Z Edition. Volume 2. Print.