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Blaise Pascal [a] (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer. Pascal was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen .
Second edition of Blaise Pascal's Pensées, 1670. The Pensées (Thoughts) is a collection of fragments written by the French 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées was in many ways his life's work. [1]
Pascal's calculator (also known as the arithmetic machine or Pascaline) is a mechanical calculator invented by Blaise Pascal in 1642. Pascal was led to develop a calculator by the laborious arithmetical calculations required by his father's work as the supervisor of taxes in Rouen . [ 2 ]
Pascal's wager is a philosophical argument advanced by Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), seventeenth-century French mathematician, philosopher, physicist, and theologian. [1] This argument posits that individuals essentially engage in a life-defining gamble regarding the belief in the existence of God .
In the letters, Pascal's tone combines the fervor of a convert with the wit and polish of a man of the world. Their style meant that, quite apart from their religious influence, the Provincial Letters were popular as a literary work. Adding to that popularity was Pascal's use of humor, mockery, and satire in his arguments.
The problem of points, also called the problem of division of the stakes, is a classical problem in probability theory.One of the famous problems that motivated the beginnings of modern probability theory in the 17th century, it led Blaise Pascal to the first explicit reasoning about what today is known as an expected value.
Commemorative plaque for the 350th anniversary of the launch of the carrosses à cinq sols in Paris; this plaque is located in Clermont-Ferrand, the birthplace of Blaise Pascal. The carrosses à cinq sols (English: five-sol coaches) were the first modern form of public transport in the world, developed by mathematician and philosopher Blaise ...
Title page of the work The Imperious Love of Blaise Pascal (1946), by Gabriel Langlois, which includes the Discours on the Passions of Love and a biography of Blaise Pascal. Langlois attributes the Discours to Pascal and assumes it was largely inspired by the philosopher's feelings towards Charlotte de Roannez.