Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
The 16-year-old Blaise Pascal demonstrates the properties of the hexagrammum mysticum in his Essai pour les coniques which he sends to Mersenne.; October 18 – Fermat states his "little theorem" in a letter to Frénicle de Bessy: if p is a prime number, then for any integer a, a p − a will be divisible by p.
Pascal's use of humor, mockery, and vicious satire in his arguments made the letters ripe for public consumption, and influenced the prose of later French writers like Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is in the Provincial Letters that Pascal made his oft-quoted apology for writing a long letter, as he had not had time to write a shorter ...
Pascal's triangle, rows 0 through 7. The hockey stick identity confirms, for example: for n =6, r =2: 1+3+6+10+15=35. In combinatorics , the hockey-stick identity , [ 1 ] Christmas stocking identity , [ 2 ] boomerang identity , Fermat's identity or Chu's Theorem , [ 3 ] states that if n ≥ r ≥ 0 {\displaystyle n\geq r\geq 0} are integers, then
Fermat sent the letters in which he mentioned the case in which n = 3 in 1636, 1640 and 1657. [31] Euler sent a letter to Goldbach on 4 August 1753 in which claimed to have a proof of the case in which n = 3. [32] Euler had a complete and pure elementary proof in 1760, but the result was not published. [33] Later, Euler's proof for n = 3 was ...
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
Pascal, being a mathematician, was provoked and determined to solve the problem once and for all. He began to discuss the problem in the famous series of letters to Pierre de Fermat . Soon enough, they both independently came up with a solution.