Blaise Pascal
<p ><b>Blaise Pascal</b> (<small>French: </small><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_French" title="Help:IPA for French" >[blɛz paskal]</a>; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematician" title="Mathematician" >mathematician</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicist" title="Physicist" >physicist</a>, inventor, writer and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_philosophy" title="Christian philosophy" >Christian philosopher</a>. He was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_prodigy" title="Child prodigy" >child prodigy</a> who was educated by his father, a tax collector in<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouen" title="Rouen" >Rouen</a>. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid" title="Fluid" >fluids</a>, and clarified the concepts of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure" title="Pressure" >pressure</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum" title="Vacuum" >vacuum</a> by generalizing the work of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelista_Torricelli" title="Evangelista Torricelli" >Evangelista Torricelli</a>. Pascal also wrote in defense of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method" title="Scientific method" >scientific method</a>.
In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines. After three years of effort and fifty prototypes,<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal#cite_note-1" >[1]</a></sup> he was one of the first two inventors of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_calculator" title="Mechanical calculator" >mechanical calculator</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal#cite_note-2" >[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal#cite_note-3" >[3]</a></sup> He built 20 of these machines (called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_calculator" title="Pascal's calculator" >Pascal's calculators</a> and later Pascalines) in the following ten years.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal#cite_note-4" >[4]</a></sup> Pascal was an important mathematician, helping create two major new areas of research: he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projective_geometry" title="Projective geometry" >projective geometry</a> at the age of 16, and later corresponded with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Fermat" title="Pierre de Fermat" >Pierre de Fermat</a> on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_theory" title="Probability theory" >probability theory</a>, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_sciences" title="Social sciences" class="mw-redirect" >social science</a>. Following <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo" title="Galileo" class="mw-redirect" >Galileo</a> and Torricelli, in 1646, he refuted <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle" title="Aristotle" >Aristotle</a>'s followers who insisted that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_vacui_(physics)" title="Horror vacui (physics)" >nature abhors a vacuum</a>. Pascal's results caused many disputes before being accepted.
In 1646, he and his sister Jacqueline identified with the religious movement within <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholicism" title="Catholicism" >Catholicism</a> known by its detractors as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jansenism" title="Jansenism" >Jansenism</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal#cite_note-5" >[5]</a></sup> His father died in 1651. Following a religious experience in late 1654, he began writing influential works on philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettres_provinciales" title="Lettres provinciales" >Lettres provinciales</a></i> and the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es" title="Pensées" >Pensées</a></i>, the former set in the conflict between Jansenists and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuits" title="Jesuits" class="mw-redirect" >Jesuits</a>. In that year, he also wrote an important treatise on the arithmetical triangle. Between 1658 and 1659 he wrote on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycloid" title="Cycloid" >cycloid</a> and its use in calculating the volume of solids.
Pascal had poor health, especially after his 18th year, and his death came just two months after his 39th birthday.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal#cite_note-6" >[6]</a></sup></p>
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