Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal was a renowned 17th-century French polymath celebrated for his contributions to mathematics and physics. In mathematics, he is remembered for Pascal's Triangle, a significant tool in combinatorics and probability theory. In physics, he made notable advancements in fluid mechanics and atmospheric pressure studies. His groundbreaking work in these fields has had a lasting impact on both mathematics and physics, cementing his legacy as a pioneering thinker of his time.

About

Blaise Pascal was smart from a young age. When he was just a teenager, he started doing serious math on shapes called conic sections and even wrote a big book about how they work. He talked a lot with another famous mathematician, Pierre de Fermat, about probability - like figuring out the chances of things happening.

At around 16, he started working on something cool: machines that could do math, for example, calculators today. People later called them Pascal's calculators or Pascaline. He was one of the first people to make something like this, and it became very revolutionary in today's modern world.

Early life

Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand, a place in France. Sadly, his mom passed away when he was just three years old. His dad, Étienne Pascal, was a judge and really liked science and math too. Blaise had two sisters, Jacqueline and Gilberte. When Blaise was around eight, his family moved to Paris. After his mom died, his dad took charge of teaching him and his sisters. They were all super smart, especially Blaise. He was really good at math and science from a very young age.

Work in Mathematics

Probability

Blaise Pascal did something super important in math called Probability theory. At first, it was about games and chances, but now it's a big deal in economics, especially in figuring out risks and making decisions. Pascal and another smart person named Fermat started this idea, but they needed to take it more. Then, a guy named Christiaan Huygens learned about it from their letters and wrote the first book on the subject. After that, more people like Abraham de Movie and Pierre-Simon Laplace kept working on it and made it even better.

Arithmetical Triangle

Blaise Pascal wrote a book called "Traite du triangle arithmétique" in 1654, but it was published after he passed away in 1665. In that book, he talked about a special way of writing numbers in a triangle. It's now called Pascal's triangle, and it helps with figuring out combinations of numbers, but back then, he just called it an arithmetical triangle.

Blaise Pascal figured out a cool way to make a triangle of numbers. He had a rule to find each number in the triangle: if you want to find the number in the row labeled (m + 1) and the column labeled (n + 1), you add the number above and the one to the left.

He started with the number 1 at the top and made a triangle using this rule. Each number is the sum of the two above it. Pascal even showed a way to figure out any number in the triangle using a formula. He also talked about a way of proving things in math called mathematical induction. He was smart and showed a relationship between adding up certain powers of numbers.

Cycloid

In 1658, Blaise Pascal had a terrible toothache. While he was in pain, he started thinking about some tricky math problems related to a shape called the cycloid. Suddenly, his toothache disappeared, and he took that as a sign to keep working on these problems. About eight days later, he finished his work and decided to make it a competition. He asked three tough questions about the center of gravity, area, and volume of the cycloid. He offered prizes for the best answers. Some smart people sent in their solutions, but the judges, including Pascal himself, thought they needed to be better.

Work in Physics

Pascal did a lot of important work on how liquids move and how pressure works. He figured out that when you push on a liquid in a certain way, you can make that push much stronger. He made things like a machine that uses liquid to make things move better, called a hydraulic press, and a tool called a syringe that can push liquids. He showed that how hard a liquid pushes on things doesn't just depend on how heavy the liquid is but also on how high or low it is.

He did an experiment where he connected a tube to a barrel of water and raised the tube high, and the water in the barrel started leaking out because of the pressure, which we now call Pascal's barrel experiment.

Religious Conversion

When Pascal's dad slipped on ice and broke his hip, it was a big deal back in the 1600s because fixing things like that was tough. Luckily, they had good doctors in their town. These doctors were part of a smaller group in the Catholic community called Jansenism, which had different beliefs. They helped Pascal's dad get better over three months, and during that time, Pascal got close to them. He started reading books they recommended and started thinking a lot about religion. That time was like a turning point for him, and he began writing about religious stuff the next year.

After Pascal's dad got better, Pascal got really interested in this smaller group within the Catholic Church called Jansenism. They had some different beliefs, and Pascal talked a lot with the doctors who were part of this group. He even borrowed books from them that talked about these beliefs. This got him thinking a lot about religion, and he started writing about it the next year.

But after a while, Pascal stepped back from being so involved in religious stuff. For a few years, he focused more on other things. Then, in 1651, his dad passed away and left some money to Pascal and his sister, Jacqueline. Jacqueline wanted to join a Jansenist convent called Port-Royal. Pascal was sad about this, not because of her choice, but because he wasn't in good health and needed her support just like she needed his.

Literature

Starting in 1656, Pascal wrote some letters where he strongly criticized a way of thinking about ethics called casuistry. This was a popular method used by Catholic thinkers, especially by a group called the Jesuits. Pascal thought casuistry was just a fancy way to justify doing bad things.

He wrote these letters under a fake name, and they got the attention of King Louis XIV. The king got mad and ordered that the book be destroyed in 1660. Then, in 1661, there was a big argument called the formulary controversy, and the Jansenist school where Pascal was involved was shut down. People from the school had to agree that certain teachings were wrong. Pascal's last letter, written in 1657, even went against the Pope himself, Alexander VII. Pascal's arguments were so strong that even though the Pope disagreed publicly, he was convinced by what Pascal said.

Death

Pascal had a unique lifestyle-he was kind of like a person who lived simply among those who were very serious about their beliefs, but he was also serious-minded among those who lived more freely. He believed suffering was normal and important.

He got very sick in 1659, and even though doctors wanted to help, he often refused their treatments, saying that being sick was just a natural part of being a Christian. In his final years, he got back to his inventive side. He created something like a very early version of a bus line in Paris. These buses had fixed routes and prices, even if there weren't many passengers. This idea was way ahead of its time, but unfortunately, it didn't work out well commercially, and the last one stopped running by 1675.

As Pascal got sicker in 1662, he also felt worse emotionally after his sister's death. He realized he was sick and wanted to move to a hospital, but the doctors said he was too unstable to be moved. In August of that year, he had severe convulsions and received a religious blessing. He passed away the next morning. His final words were a prayer asking God to stay with him. He was buried in a cemetery in Paris.

After he died, doctors checked his body and found serious problems in his stomach and other organs, along with damage to his brain. They couldn't pinpoint exactly what made him so sick, but they thought it might have been tuberculosis, stomach cancer, or maybe both. The headaches he suffered might have been because of his brain damage.

Conclusion

Blaise Pascal was a polymath whose contributions spanned mathematics, physics, philosophy, and theology. His most notable achievements include the invention of the Pascaline, significant contributions to probability theory, and his profound religious writings. Pascal's keen insights into human nature, faith, and reason continue to influence fields ranging from science to philosophy. His legacy endures as a testament to the power of interdisciplinary thinking and the pursuit of knowledge.