Blaise Pascal: Protégé and innovator of mathematics

1. Blaise Pascal:Protégé and innovator of mathematics By IzabelHodson I wonder what would happen if I went and thought on a rock…….

2. The time at which Pascal lived in Pascal lived on the brink of a time of scientific discovery in Europe known as the Scientific Revolution Pascal’s ideas were influenced not only by the French community to which he grew up in but also the religious conflict of the time and the institutions that emerged Galileo, Newton, Rene Descartes, and Brahe were just some of the scientists of Pascal’s time

3. Building Blocks of Pascal’s Knowledge=His Father Pascal’s childhood • Blaise Pascal was born on June 19, 1623 in Claremont, France • Dad Etienne Pascal was a minor noble and government official. • Pascal’s mother died in 1626 when Pascal was just 3. • Pascal moves to Paris in 1631. He started his education and was found to have a gift for mathematics. • At the early age of 14, Pascal was admitted to weekly meetings with Roberval, Mersenne, and other French geometricians, from which the French Academy sprung. • This was a significant position considering the selectiveness of French Academic Institutions compared to other European institutions

4. Blaise Pascal Calculator Pascal created this for his father to use in 1642 in his job as a royal tax commissioner Pascal spent three years and went through 50 prototypes before presenting his first machine to the public in 1645 This invention launched many innovators to come out in Europe and start inventing other mechanical devices and other calculators This calculator could add and subtract and paved the way for future arithmetic machines

5. Pascal’s Triangle • Published in Pascal’s Traité du triangle arithmétique (1653) • Though Pascal was not the first to discover this pattern (the Chinese and Arabs had in earlier centuries), Pascal was the first to realize its compete capabilities and uses the pattern contained • Pascal’s triangle is a pattern of binomial coefficients in a triangle • This made a significant contribution in geometry and number theory • Applications of Pascal’s findings include: • (x + y)2 = x2 + 2xy + y2 = 1x2y0 + 2x1y1 + 1x0y2 • Orthemodelforall: • (x + y)n = a0xn + a1xn−1y + a2xn−2y2 + ... + an−1xyn−1 + anyn

6. I wonder if it took Pascal a machine to figure out probability Pascal and probability • French nobleman Chevalier challenged Pascal to solve a puzzle known at the time as the problem of points. • Pascal shows how to figure out the answer by listing all of the possibilities from the very beginning.  •   We then look at all the combinations of heads and tails that are possible in three tosses =eight.  • If each H or T has a possibility of being correct 4 times, this means that all 8 have an equally probability of picking. • Through his work with probability Pascal established many of the basic laws of probability we use today PROBLEM OF POINTS— The issue in question was to decide how the stakes of a game of chance should be divided if that game were not completed for some reason.

7. Pascal’s Wager Pascal formulated an argument for his belief in God which has come to be known as Pascal’s Wager He states in Pensees:If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss). But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all), whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation) This theological argument is based upon the thought that failure to accept God’s existence risks losing everything with no payoff and in turn the best solution is to accept God

8. Pascal’s theology In literature, Pascal is regarded as one of the important authors of the French Classical Period and is today still one of the best authors of French prose. His use of satire and wit influenced later debaters of science and other fields. The content of his literature is best remembered for its strong opposition to the rationalism of René Descartes and simultaneous assertion that the main countervailing philosophy, empiricism, was also not good for determining major truths.

9. Pascal’s Religious Affiliations Jansenism—theology and religion emphasizing original sin, human depravity, predestination, and divine grace. • Though King Louis XIV deemed the Jansenists or radical Catholics heretical, Pascal was a firm Jansenist • He wrote Écritsur la signature du formulaire ("Writ on the Signing of the Form"), exhorting the Jansenists not to give in. • The Roman- Catholic Church also deemed Jansenism heretical and this led to the French suppression of the movement in Port-Royal in 1661

10. Significance and death of Pascal In honor of his scientific contributions, the name Pascal has been given to the SI unit of pressure,, Pascal's triangle and Pascal's wager still bear his name. In 1662, Pascal's illness became worse, and his emotional condition had severely worsened since his sister´s death. In Paris on August 18, 1662, Pascal went into convulsions. He died the next morning, his last words being "May God never abandon me," and was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. An autopsy performed after his death revealed problems with his stomach, organs, and abdomen. Despite the autopsy, the cause of his poor health was never precisely determined.

11. Sources cited • http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~mmk/Teaching/AI/l1.html • http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/pascal.html • http://www.countingblocks.com/building-blocks/ • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_calculator • http://www.mathsisgoodforyou.com/artefacts/pascalstriangle.htm • http://abundancesecrets.com/motivational-posters/index.php?item=1869791 • http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/wager.html • http://bccphilosophy08.blogspot.com/ • http://verydemotivational.memebase.com/?id=8744 • http://www.examiner.com/atheism-in-philadelphia/atheism-101-refuting-pascal-s-wager • http://poundingheartbeat.com/2010/10/28/blaise-pascal-quotes-about-life/ • http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/h/heretic.asp • http://weirdscience.ca/page/3/ • http://jpposters.com/Art/41296/Death-Mask-of-Blaise-Pascal-1662/1733254.html