Blaise Pascal

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piece of paper at a Mersenne's meeting in June 1639. It held many of his geometry theorems, including his mystic hexagon. In December 1639 he and his family left Paris and moved to Rouen where his father Etienne was appointed tax collector for Upper Normandy. Soon after settling down in Rouen his Essay on Conic Sections was published in February of 1640. It was his first great work. Pascal also invented the first digital calculator to aid his father in his tax collecting duties. For three years he worked 1642 - 1545. Dubbed the Pascaline, it resembled a mechanical calculator of the 1940's. This almost assuredly makes Pascal second only to Shickard who manufactured the first in 1624. Pascal faced problems with the design of the calculator due to the design of French currency at the time. There were 12 deniers in a sol, and 20 sols in a livre. Therefore there were 240 deniers in a livre. Hence Pascal had to deal with more technical problems to work with this odd way of dividing by ...

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its success." In October of 1647 Pascal wrote New Experiments Concerning Vacuums which would lead to disputes with various scientists who didn't believe in vacuums. Etienne Pascal died in September of 1651, which hurt Blaise badly. He wrote to one his sisters giving a deep Christian meaning to death in general and also to his father's death particularly. These ideas were to later form the basis of his philosophical work called Pensees. Then in May 1653 Pascal worked with mathematics and physics writing Treatise on the Equilibrium of Liquids which he explains his law of pressure called Pascal's law of pressure. Adamson writes: "This treatise is a complete outline of a system of ...

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