Essay Database

Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662) By Victoria Hubble Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand, France, on June 19th, 1623. His mother, Antoinette Begon, died when he was three; and his father, Etienne, who was a local judge with a scientific reputation, brought him up. Etienne Pascal retired and moved to Paris in 1631 to concentrate on his own scientific research and to take care of his son, Blaise, and his two daughters, Gilberte and Jaqueline. Etienne had unorthodox views …

…of mind that prevented his discovering the infinitesimal calculus, and in some of the Provincial Letters the mysterious relations of human beings with God are treated as if they were a geometrical problem. But these considerations are far outweighed by the profit that he drew from the multiplicity of his gifts, his religious writings are rigorous because of his scientific training ... Blaise Pascal was no doubt one of the best mathematicians in the seventeenth century.