Blaise Pascal lived in
17th Century France, Pascal is still known as a great mathematician. Pascal
first began to study math in 1635. He read and memorized the Euclid’s Elements
by the age of 12. Pascal did not intend school so his talent in math was
known until he mastered the Euclid’s Elements. Blaise attended lectures
and mathematical gatherings in his teenage years.
When Blaise turned 16, he began to participate
actively in the mathematical gatherings. At these gatherings, Pascal became
the principal disciple of “Girard Desargues,” (a professor working there
because he was the only one who appreciated his work in geometry.) Pascal
began to work on conics and he eventually published many papers partaining
to geometry. Pascal lost a year of research in 1641 because he became ill.
In 1642, Pascal began
to invent a counting machine. After his first attempts failed, Pascal stopped
working on the calculator for a couple years. In 1644 he returned the calculator
idea because of the encouragement he received. Pascal finished the calculator
in 1645 after trying more than 50 incarnations of the design.
Pascal worked on many mathematical
problems, including principals of fluids and gases. In 1646 he proved
that the mercury in a barometer did not move because of a vacuum but rather
because of barometric pressure. Pascal also created the "Pascal's Triangle."
This is used to calculate probabilities of winning in gambling
Pascal died from cancer in 1662 at the
age of 39. Pascels famous sayings