Pascal (anglais/ francais)

Biographical note
French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a civil servant. Pascal’s earliest work was in the natural andapplied sciences where he made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators, the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work ofEvangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defense of the scientific method.
Pascal was a mathematician of the first order. He helped create two major new areas of research. He wrote a significanttreatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of sixteen, and later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics andsocial science. Following Galileo and Torricelli, in 1646 he refuted Aristotle’s followers who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum. His results caused many disputes before being accepted.
In 1646, heand his sister Jacqueline converted to Jansenism. His father died in 1651. Following a mystical experience in late 1654, he had his « second conversion », abandoned his scientific work, and devotedhimself to philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the Lettres provinciales and the Pensées, the former set in the conflict between Jansenists and Jesuits. In this year,he also wrote an important treatise on the arithmetic of triangles. Between 1658 and 1659 he wrote on the cycloid and its use in calculating the volume of solids.
Pascal had poor health throughouthis life and his death came just two months after his 39th birthday

C’est le premier système mécanique qui permet d’effectuer additions et soustractions avec report automatique des dizaines. Cettemachine est plus connue sous le nom de la Pascaline. En 1639, Etienne Pascal avait été nommé surintendant de la généralité de Rouen et il passait beaucoup de temps à additionner des colonnes de…