Youmbi blaise pascal biography

Blaise Pascal lived an extraordinary yet painfully short life. In his 39 years on this Earth, the prodigious French philosopher, mathematician and inventor pioneered groundbreaking work across geometry, probability theory, physics as well as religion and philosophy. Despite chronic ill health from the age of 18, Pascal essentially launched the disciplines of probability modeling, computer science and decision theory while also laying critical foundations for modern Christian theology.

But rather than remarry, his father devoted himself entirely to educating Blaise and his two sisters — Jacqueline Pascal — and Gilberte Pascal — Perhaps due to the undivided attention and access to scholarly resources, the Pascal children all demonstrated extraordinary intellectual gifts from a very early age. Jacqueline excelled at languages, grammar and literary analysis.

As for Blaise, his young mind fixated on logic, systems and spatial reasoning. So Blaise was homeschooled under a rigorous scientifically-focused curriculum — studying the classics alongside contemporary work in the bourgeoning Age of Enlightenment. While most 12 year olds struggled with basic geometry proofs, pre-teen Pascal was independently formulating innovative theorems about conic sections and spherical projections.

Youmbi blaise pascal biography: Pascal's Pensées Blaise Pascal, Published in

By 14, he wrote a paper so ingenious it gained the admiration of renowned mathematician Marin Mersenne and other eminent Parisian thinkers. It was in Rouen that Pascal invented a rudimentary adding machine at age 19 to help his tax collector father with tedious calculations. Mechanical limitations meant Pascaline lacked commercial viability.