Blaise Pascal Essay

Blaise Pascal was many things, a physicist, an inventor, a writer, and even a Christian philosopher, but the one thing that most remember him by is a mathematician. Pascal was a very successful man, but in order to fully understand how his success came about, one must go back to his beginning.

Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand, France, June 19, 1623, and died August 19, 1662 in Paris, France. He was the third child, and the only child to Etienne and Antoinette Pascal. He was extremely close to his two older sisters, Gilberte and Jacqueline. Jacqueline became a nun after their father died at Port Royal Convent. Her treatise on methods and principles of the pedagogy, used by convent schools, was a huge contribution to the philosophy of education. Pascal’s other sister, Gilberte, was an author. She wrote the book, The Life of Pascal. Pascal’s mother, Antoinette, died when he was just three years old. No one really knows how or what she died from.

The family stayed in Clermont-Ferrand, France for another five years after their mom, Antoinette passed away. Then, in 1631, Pascal and his family moved to Paris, France. Here, Etienne decided that he would educate Blaise himself. Part of his plan to do so was to create his own unorthodox curriculum. Ironically, while doing so, he omitted mathematics from the early part of the curriculum. Etienne was concerned that Blaise would become so fascinated with geometry, that he would be unable to focus on other, more classical subjects. The beginning of his education is Paris was geared more towards languages, mainly Latin and Greek. Pascal explains that,

That quote explains how Pascal felt about learning the new languages and the difficulty level of doing so.

Unfortunately, his plan backfire...

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...stem relies on an extended version of the metric system, so that you can calculate how much pressure there is at a certain place and/or time.

In 1972, Nicklaus Wirth insisted on naming the new computer language he had just invented after Pascal. This was Wirth’s way of remembering and memorializing Pascal and his invention of the Pascaline. The Pascaline was one of the earliest forms of the modern computer. The credit for building the foundation of probability theory goes out to Blaise Pascal, too.

Blaise Pascal was a very important person in the history of not only mathematics, but in physics and computer science. He was an extremely smart man and should be recognized of all the theories he discovered and the many inventions he had. Blaise Pascal most definitely played a huge role in the history of education and getting our knowledge to be where it is right now.