Blaise Pascal was born on June 19th, 1623 in Clermont-Ferrand, France.
He was the third of four children and the only son of his parents Etienne and Antoinette Pascal.
When Blaise was very young his mother, Antoinette, passed away. His father then moved his family to Paris where he spent most of his life.
His father was a very talented mathematician, but did not want Pascal to study mathematics because he felt that it
would take away from his other studies such as humanities and language. "But this restriction, in accord with a law that
seems to operate almost without fail in such cases, served only to whet Pascal's curiosity about mathematics and - especially - geometry" (Davidson, 1983, pg. 3).
At the age of 12 Blaise started studying geometry on his own. He would sit on the floor of his playroom and draw geometric figures.
One day his father, Etienne, asked him what he was doing. Blaise replied that he was trying to express the relationship between the
angels of a triangle and two right angles - that is, he was working on what is the 32nd proposition in book 1 of Euclid's Elements of Geometry.
This link gives a deeper explanation of what the 32nd
proposition in book 1 of Euclid's Elements of Geometry really is. It was around this time that his father, Etienne, began to
watch Blaise and realized how smart Blaise was in the field of mathematics. Instead of being upset with Blaise, he was very proud
and gave his son a copy of Euclid's Elements and allowed Blaise to continue studying mathematics (Davidson, 1983).
From that time forward Blaise dedicated his life to the study of mathematics. Pascal's father brought him into the society
of mathematicians with whom he was associated with. The society's name was Academie libre and they met every week to discuss
current topics in science and math. Members of this group, headed by Mersenne, included other renowned mathematicians such as
Desargue, Roberval, Fermat and Descartes. Pascal continued to receive, whether at home or when traveling, his father's rigorous tutoring.
When Pascal was just sixteen years of age he published his first essay on conic sections called Essai pour les coniques which showed
remarkable talent in such a young man. Throughout his life Pascal had several works published. One of his publications was
called Traite du triangle arithmetique which deals specifically with the Arithmetic Triangle which will be discussed later (Davidson, 1983).
Unfortunately throughout his life Pascal suffered from poor health. Most of it was caused by being over worked and stressed.
He suffered from bad headaches and stomach problems. During one particular time of sickness he had to have help from doctors and family.
The doctors that were taking care of him were optimistic about the effects of their medicines. However, Pascal had little confidence in the
medicine and could feel that the end was near. He died on August 19th 1662 at one in the morning at the age of thirty-nine (Davidson, 1983).
