Blaise Pascal (1623 1662 AD) was born in Clermont Ferrand on 19 June 1623. His father Etienne Pascal, royal adviser who was later appointed president of the organization the Court of Aids in the city of Clermont.
His mother died when he was 3 years old, leaving him and his two sisters, Gilberte and Jacqueline. In 1631 the family moved to Paris.
Since the age of 12, he has been invited by his father to attend mathematical discussion societies. His father taught him linguistics, especially Latin and Greek, but not mathematics. His father deliberately skipped math lessons to Pascal solely to provoke the child's curiosity.
Pascal became accustomed to experimenting with geometric shapes, as well as finding standard geometric formulas and giving these formulas his name.
In 1640 Pascal and his family moved to the city of Rouen. At that time, he was still being taught directly by his father, but Pascal studied so hard that it even drained his stamina and health. His efforts were not in vain, he finally managed to find an amazing Geometry theorem.
Sometimes he referred to the theorem as a "magic hexagram" a theorem about the equations of crossing between lines. Not a theorem that simply calculates the equilibrium of form, but, more fundamental and important, which at that time had never been developed into a separate branch of mathematics. - the geometry of projection.
Pascal later worked on it into a book, Essay on Conics, which he completed until 1640, where the magic hexagram was the main subject, which discussed hundreds of calculations about cones, also discussed Apollonius' theorem, which was amazing not only because of his age. the young at the time (16 years) but because its calculations also include elements tangents, etc.
Adheres Jansenists and convent Port Royal
In the year 1646 Pascal's father had an accident then treated at home. some of the neighbors been visited him, suddenly some of the followers of Jansenist, established by Cornelis Jansen, a professor of Kel a Dutch scholar who teaches theology at Louvain University.
A belief that goes against Jesuit teachings. Pascal seemed to be influenced and became a follower of Jansenists, and made him strongly opposed to the teachings of the Jesuits. Her sister, Jacqueline, also intends to enter the Jansenist convent in Port Royal.
Pascal's father, Etienne Pascal did not like this, then invited his family to move to Paris, but after his father died in 1651 Jacqueline joined the Port Royal monastery.
Pascal is still busy enjoying his worldly life - along with his friends from the aristocracy - spending the money he inherited from his father. Finally, in 1614, he became a full-fledged Jansenism, and he began his psychological life at the monastery of Port Royal.
Provincial Letters
In 1655 Antoine Arnauld, a well-known writer commented on the teachings of Jansenism, which the Sorbonne government officially banned as heretical teachings, then Pascal answered the article by writing in the famous media the Provincial Letters using the pseudonym Louis de Montalto, to maintain the teachings of Jansenism.
It was as if they had a polemic between two friends, starting from January 13, 1656, to March 24, 1657. Media the Provincial Letters had thousands of copies and circulated all over Paris, the Jesuits tried to provoke who the real writer was - - they cleverly made fun of it - mocked those who tried to reveal they're true identity.
The Pensees
News about Pascal's personal life has not been heard much since he entered life at Port Royal. His sister Gilberte watched him lead an ascetic life. Pascal, apart from not liking to seeing his younger sister busy with his children, was also resentful of her conversation which was all about women's matters. Starting in 1658, the suffering of his headaches got worse, finally, he died on August 19, 1662.
When Pascal's death left an incomplete paper on theology, the Pensees, an apology of Christianity so that it was only published 8 years later by the Port Royal monastery in an unsophisticated form. complete and unclear.
A more authentic published version first appeared in 1844. It explored the great problem of Christian thought, of beliefs as opposed to Cause, Free-Will, and Early Knowledge. Pascal explained the contradictions and moral problems of life, the doctrine of the Fall (expulsion from heaven) which became the basis of belief and became the basis of justification for the doctrine of Redemption.
The Pensees, in contrast to Provincial Letters, was written directly by the author, with a writing style, which of course did not match, with his prowess as the figure of a famous writer. The Letters, however, have placed Pascal into literary history alongside great French authors.
The Pensees feels as if it was written by someone else, who doesn't seem to care much about religion. However, although they differ between the two, each of them remains an important book in the history of religious thought.
Other mathematical and scientific works
Pascal also wrote on hydrostatics, describing his experiments using a barometer to explain his theory of the Equilibrium of Fluids, which was not published until one year after his death.
His paper on the Liquid Equation prompted Simion Stevin to undertake an analysis of the hydrostatic paradox and to straighten out what is known as the final law of hydrostatics: that liquids transmit compressive forces equally in all directions (which became known as Pascal's Law).
Pascal's law is considered important because of the relationship between the theory of liquid matter and the theory of gaseous bodies, and about changes in shape about the two which became known as the Hydrodynamic Theory.
Pascal's theory exerted its influence on mathematical theory when Pascal started life in Port Royal which was used to solve calculation problems related to curves and circles, which modern mathematicians also have to master.
He published many theorems which were presented as challenges to other mathematicians to solve, without a single answer.
Answers then came from John Wallis, Christopher Wren, Christian Huygens, and friends, without satisfactory results. Pascal finally published his answer using the pseudonym Amos DettonviIle (later known as the Louis de Montalto anagram), and mathematicians now often refer to himself by this name.
The mathematical theory of probability developed for the first time when there was communication between Pascal and Pierre de Fermat who finally found that both Pascal's theory and Mathematical Probability had similarities even though each of them remained independent.
Pascal planned to write a paper about it, but again only excerpts he left behind, published after his death. He never wrote long and convoluted mathematical theories, but short, clear, and timeless writings.