Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal 

Blaise Pascal, French philosopher, mathematician and physicist, considered one of the great minds in Western intellectual history. Inventor of the first mechanical calculator. 

Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand, 19 June 1623, and his family settled in Paris in 1629th Under the guidance of his father, Pascal soon proved himself a mathematical prodigy, and at the age of 16 He formulated a fundamental theorems of projective geometry, known as Pascal's theorem and described in his essay on conic, in the 1639th 

In 1642 he invented the first mechanical calculator. Pascal proved by experiments in 1648 that the levels of mercury column in a barometer is down by an increase or a decrease in the ambient atmospheric pressure instead of a vacuum, as previously believed. This discovery verified the hypothesis of the Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli concerning the effect of atmospheric pressure on the equilibrium of fluids. Six years later, in collaboration with the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat, Pascal formulated the mathematical theory of probability, which has been important in areas such as actuarial, mathematical, social statistics and as a fundamental element in the calculations of modern theoretical physics.

Pascal's other important scientific contributions include the release of Pascal's law or principle which states that fluids transmit pressure equally in all directions, and his exploration of geometry vanishingly small. His methodology reflected his emphasis on empirical studies, in contrast to the analytic a priori methods, and he believed that human progress is perpetuated by the accumulation of scientific discoveries from such experiments. 

Pascal went Jansenism and in 1654 came to Jansenism community in Port Royal, where he led a rigorously ascetic life until his death eight years later. In 1656 he wrote the famous 18 letters in the province (Provincial Letters), in which he attacked the Jesuits for their attempts to reconcile the 16th century naturalism with orthodox Roman Catholicism. 

His most positive religious statement appeared posthumously (he died August 19, 1662); it was published in fragmentary form in 1670 by the apology of the Christian religion. In these fragments, which were later incorporated into his work, he went into the alternatives of potential salvation and eternal damnation, which meant that only by conversion to Jansenism could salvation be achieved. Pascal argued that regardless of whether salvation was achieved, humanity's ultimate destiny is an afterlife belonging to a supernatural realm, which can only be known intuitively. Pascal's last major work was Thoughts on Religion and other topics were also published in 1670. In pansies Pascal tried to explain and justify the difficulties of human life by the doctrine of original sin, and he claimed that revelation can be comprehended only by faith, which in turn is based on revelation. 

Pascal's writings poor acceptance of the Christian life contains frequent use of the calculations of probability, and he reasoned that the value of eternal happiness is infinite and that although the probability of obtaining such happiness by religion may be small it is infinitely more than any other course of human behavior or beliefs. A reclassification of pansies, a diligent work started in 1935 and continued by several researchers, not reconstruct Apologize, but allows the reader to follow the plan that Pascal himself would have followed. 

Pascal was one of the most eminent mathematicians and physicists of his day, and one of the most mystical writers in Christian literature. His religious works are personal in their speculation on matters beyond human understanding. He is generally ranked among the finest French polemicists, especially in the letters in the province, a classic in the literature of irony. Pascal's prose style is known for its originality and above all for its complete lack of artifice. He affects his readers by his use of logic and the passionate force of his dialectic.