Blaise Pascal
1623 – 1662 · France · Mathematics, Physics, Philosophy
Probability theory, hydrostatics, and a mechanical calculator at nineteen.
Index entry
Blaise Pascal is currently a short index entry. The research desk can draft the full profile — achievements, works, living legacy and what is documented about the family line.
Expand this profileContinuity of ideas
Who shaped Blaise Pascal, and who they shaped
Inherited from1
- René Descartes
1596 – 1650 · Philosophy, Mathematics
Pascal's physics and his quarrel with rationalist certainty are both framed by Descartes.
Passed the work to1
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
1646 – 1716 · Mathematics, Philosophy
The Pascaline is the mechanical calculator Leibniz set out to improve.
Sources and references
Numbered markers in the text above point to the entries below. Each links to a primary document, archival collection or scholarly reference where the claim about Blaise Pascal can be checked.
- 1.Primary texts and first editions by or about Blaise Pascal
Internet Archive · Primary source
- 2.Catalogued holdings and archival finding aids for Blaise Pascal
WorldCat (OCLC) · Archive
Nearby in the annals
Hypatia of Alexandria
360 – 415Mathematician and astronomer murdered by a mob; symbol of learning against zealotry.
Aryabhata
476 – 550Gave place-value, an accurate π, and a rotating Earth in 499 CE.
Brahmagupta
598 – 668First to treat zero as a number and define rules for negatives.