Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal
Philosopher and Scientist
Modern era
Blaise Pascal
Birth	19 June 1623 Clermont-Ferrand , France
Deaths	19 August 1662 (39 years) Paris , France
School / tradition	Jansenism
Main interests	Philosophy , mathematics , physical , moral and theological
Notable ideas	Bet on the existence of God, entertainment-misery of the human condition, probability in mathematics
Influenced by	Augustine of Hippo , Michel De Montaigne , Descartes
Influenced	Arnauld , Duhem
change

Blaise Pascal, born 19 June 1623 at Clairmont (now Clermont-Ferrand ), in Auvergne and died on 19 August 1662 in Paris , is a mathematician , physicist , inventor , philosopher , moralist and theologian French.

Precocious child, he was educated by his father. The earliest work of Pascal relate natural sciences and applied. It contributes significantly to the study of fluids. He clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by expanding the work of Torricelli. Pascal wrote important texts on the scientific method.

To nineteen years ^, and after three years of development and 50 prototypes, he presents his contemporaries in dedicating it to the chancellor Seguier . Called machine arithmetic, then wheel and finally Pascaline Pascaline , he built a twenty copies in the next decade .

First-class mathematician, he created two new major research fields: first he published a treatise on projective geometry to sixteen years, and then in 1654 he developed a method for solving the " problem parties "who gave birth during eighteenth ^century to the calculation of probabilities , will strongly influence the economic theory and modern social science.

After an experience mystical he felt after a coach crash in October 1654 , ^, he devoted himself to philosophical and religious reflection. He wrote during this period, Provincial and Thoughts , the latter being published after his death, which comes two months after his ^39th birthday, when he was sick a long time (subject to migraines violent in particular).

Youth

Born at Clairmont (now Clermont-Ferrand ), in Auvergne , Blaise Pascal lost his mother, Antoinette Begon, at the age of three years. His father, tienne Pascal ( in 1588 - one thousand six hundred and fifty-one ) very interested in math and science , was a local judge and member of the small nobility. Blaise Pascal had two sisters, Jacqueline , born in 1625 , and Gilbert (born 1620 , married in 1641 to Florin Perier ), who survived him.

In 1631 , Stephen went with her children to Paris. He decides to educate his own son, who showed extraordinary intellectual and mental dispositions. Indeed, very early, Blaise has an immediate capacity for math and science , perhaps inspired by his father's frequent conversations with leading scholars of the day: Roberval , Mersenne , Desargues , Mydorge , Gassendi and Descartes.

At eleven, he composed a short treatise on sounds of vibrating bodies and have demonstrated the 32 ^th proposal ^I. Book of Euclid (on the sum of the angles of a triangle) . tienne responded by forbidding his son all continued his studies in mathematics up to fifteen years, so he can study Latin and Greek. Sainte-Beuve (in Port Royal , III, p. 484) says:

"I have nothing to say elements of geometry, except that Pascal, who had read in manuscript, thought so clear and well ordered, he threw into the fire, they say, an essay elements that had made him even after Euclid, and Arnauld ruled confused even what it had originally given to Arnold 's idea of composing his essay with a laugh, Pascal challenged to do better, and the doctor, his favorite leisure activity, stood and won the challenge. "

At twelve years ( 1635 ), he started working alone on the geometry. The work of Desargues particularly interested him and inspired him, at sixteen, a treatise on the sections taper : An Essay on the bevel. Much is lost, but an essential outcome and remains under the original name of Pascal's theorem. Pascal's work was so precocious that Descartes , when he saw the manuscript, thought it was his father ^{Last works and death}

Pascal's epitaph in the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont , ^5th arrondissement of Paris

Thomas Stearns Eliot describes Pascal, this period of his life as "a worldly man among ascetics and as an ascetic among men of the world." The ascetic lifestyle of Pascal had his faith in that it was natural and normal for a man to suffer. In his later years troubled by poor health, he rejects the orders of his doctors, saying: "The disease is naturally Christian. "According to his sister Gilberte, he then writes his prayer to ask God for the good use of disease.

In 1659 , Pascal fell seriously ill.

Louis XIV banned the Jansenist movement at Port-Royal in 1661. In response, Pascal wrote one of his last works, written on the signature form, exhorting the Jansenists not sign it. Later that year, his sister Jacqueline died, which convinced Pascal to cease his polemics on Jansenism.

With his knowledge of hydrostatic , he participated in the draining of swamps Poitevin, at the request of the Duke of Roannez. With the latter he will open the last of his achievements which perfectly reflects the desire for concrete action that inhabits the learned: The first line of "transit", ferrying passengers in Paris with "five coaches soil "provided with several seats.

In 1662 , Pascal's disease has become more violent. Aware that he has little chance of surviving, he thinks to find a hospital for incurable diseases, but his doctors say intransportable. In Paris , on 17 August 1662 , Pascal has convulsions and received extreme unction. He died the morning of 19 at No. 8, rue Neuve-Saint-Etienne-du-Mont (now No. 2 of the Rollin Street ), his last words being "May God never abandon me." He is buried in the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont.

An autopsy after his death reveal severe stomach and abdominal problems, accompanied by brain damage. Despite the autopsy, the exact reason for his failing health is not known.

Speculation occurred about tuberculosis, cancer of the stomach or a combination of both. The headaches that affected Pascal are attributed to brain injury. ( Marguerite Perier , his niece, says in his biography of Pascal that the autopsy revealed that "the skull contained no trace other than the lambdoid suture ... with plenty of brains, whose substance was so strong and condensed ..." ).

Professors M. Dordain and R. Dailly, Faculty of Medicine, Rouen developed in the 1970s, the work of MM. Augeix, Chedecal, and Crussaire Nautiacq and establish a "diagnosis of chronic renal failure" with "suspicion of a disease polykistique kidneys" and "cerebral vascular lesions in the process of complications (thrombosis). Pascal would have been reached "a genetic disease ...

Miracle

When Pascal returns to Paris , having just overseen the publication of his last letter, his religious belief is strengthened by its proximity to an apparent miracle for his niece Marguerite Perier aged ten, in the chapel of the convent of Port Royal. His mother Gilberte Perier tells in Pascal's life she dedicated to her brother:

"It was at that time it pleased God to heal my daughter of a lachrymal fistula , which he felt sad he was three and a half years. The fistula was of such poor quality that the most skillful surgeons of Paris judged incurable. And finally God had reserved to heal by the touch of a Holy Thorn which is at Port Royal des Champs , and this miracle was attested by several physicians and surgeons, and licensed by the solemn decision of the Church. "

Later, the Jansenists and Catholics used it to their defense this miracle well documented. In 1728 , Pope Benedict XIII used it to show that the age of miracles was not over.

Pascal put it in her eye shield surmounted by a crown of thorns, with the inscription Scio cui credidi ("I know whom I have believed"). His renewed faith, he decided to write his work will, unfinished Penses.

Thoughts

Pascal could not finish before his death, his most important theological work: a sustained examination and logical defense of Christian faith, with the original title Apologie of the Christian religion.

After his death, many sheets of paper were found when sorting his belongings, which were recorded on isolated thoughts, grouped in bundles in leaves an interim order but speaking. The first version of these scattered notes is printed in 1670 under the title Thoughts of M. Pascal on religion and on some other topics. They quickly became a classic. Because his friends and disciples of Port Royal were aware that these "thoughts" piecemeal could lead to skepticism rather than piety, they concealed the skeptical thoughts and changed some of the rest, lest the king or the church does take offense when the persecution of Port-Royal had ceased, and the editors did not want a resumption of the debate. It was not until the ^nineteenth century that the thoughts are completely and published with the original text, drawn from oblivion and edited by the philosopher Victor Cousin.

Pascal's Penses is widely considered a key piece and a step of French literature. In commenting on a chapter, Sainte-Beuve considered these pages as the finest of the French language. Will Durant , in its eleventh volume of the History of Civilization, the judge as "the most eloquent book in French." In Penses , Pascal has several philosophical paradoxes: infinity and nothing , faith and reason , soul and matter , death and life , sense and vanity - apparently arriving at any final conclusion without the support of humility and thanks. By bringing them together, he develops Pascal's wager.

Blaise Pascal and religion

Jansen

From a biographical point of view, two basic influences the guide to his conversion: the Jansenism and disease.

Pascal children have received a Christian education from their father and their governess Louise Delfault. We can realize this by reading the poems of Jacqueline. Stephen receives the greatest minds. Some boast of being libertines, having shaken off the yoke of religion. Stephen listens and so forcefully refutes belief that Blaise was beaten and dream of one day becoming not only a mathematician, but defender of religion. In addition to his son Stephen left this warning: "Anything that is the object of faith can not be the reason." In 1645, after two and three pieces of Jacqueline Pascal, Pascal seems to have had an unhappy love affair which almost prove fatal. He decides not to marry.

In 1646 , Pascal's father was dismissed leg by falling on the ice, he was treated by two doctors Jansenists (The Bouteillerie and Deslandes), followers of John Duvergier Hauranne (Abbe de Saint-Cyran) who introduced Jansenism France. Blaise talks with them frequently during the three months of treatment his father, they borrow books from authors Jansenists , especially excited about the Sermon on the reformation of the inner man written by Cornelius Jansen in 1628, which indicates whether strongly marked that communicates his admiration for his relatives, some claiming that this was therefore the date of his "first conversion. It is strongly marked by their testimony. Through them, God calls him. He responded by giving themselves to Him, he communicates his enthusiasm to his family, Jacqueline previously torn between love of God and the world she wants to become a nun shines. This is not a conversion, in the words of Jacqueline's progress. (You must read the testimony on her sister Gilberte Pascal. There is no question of Jansenism, or Port Royal or conversion). This gift to God does not do the same Pascal year 1646 the remarkable experiences to glassware Sever Rouen which prove the existence of a vacuum. And we are in the admiration of genius that leads from the front constantly work of secular reason and a life of faith which, far from weakening steadily progress to the more authentic mysticism.

He discovered that walking in the footsteps of Copernicus and Galileo to release the physical weight of the death of Aristotle and the scholastic approach is that of a vain reason involved in the stain of all mankind, and that everything boils genius in him not only led to entertain a terrible revelation and redemption. That means knowing who does not throw the man at the foot of the Cross? In this period, Pascal experienced a kind of "first conversion" and begins, during this year, to write on theological subjects. His whole family gets to "enjoy God" with him.

Since its eighteenth year, he suffered a nervous ailment that left him hardly a day without pain. In 1647 , an attack of paralysis reached the point where it can not move without crutches. He has a headache, stomach ache, legs and feet are constantly cold and require care to activate blood circulation, he wears stockings soaked in water spirits to warm their feet. Partly to get better medical treatment, he went to Paris with her sister Jacqueline. His health is improving but his nervous system is permanently disrupted. Henceforth, it is subject to a profound hypochondria , which affected his character and philosophy. He became irritable, prone to fits of anger proud and imperious, and he rarely smiles.

Pascal away from his first religious commitment and he lives for a few years what he called "a worldly period ( 1648 - 1654 ). These are experiments on the vacuum , following the work of Torricelli , who occupy it fully. From 1646 to 1654 , he increased his experiments with all kinds of instruments. One of them, in 1648 allows him to confirm the reality of vacuum and atmospheric pressure and establish the general theory of fluid balance.

His father died in 1651 and Pascal took his inheritance and that of her sister Jacqueline. 4 January 1651, despite opposition from his brother, Jacqueline entered Port-Royal de Paris. Legally, she lost her civil rights. Pascal cup of Port Royal for two years and nine months, except for some stormy interview with his sister. The entry of his sister at the convent in Pascal triggers depression. The doctors advised him to marry, take a load. Pascal requires otherwise, the doctors insist. Pascal finally agrees and is taking steps in that direction. He could have married, remaining faithful to God as the two nurses, as Mr. Renty of which he has read the life written by Saint-Jure a Jesuit, but he soon realizes that this is not his way. In September 1652, he moved to Clermont-Ferrand where Florin just bought Bienassis with its beautiful castle. He stayed eight months. Bienassis adjoins the area of Carmelites Discalced where Blaise Pascal Chardon found his cousin and childhood friend who is religious. Pascal is an initial retirement attest to his sister and read John of the Cross. It discovers and becomes mystical contemplation. At the time of the vows in June 1653, Jacqueline wants to make a large dowry to the monastery, which is illegal. In May, Pascal in Clermont. With Florin Perier, husband of Gilberte, they refuse to be placed on legal terms. Pascal returned to Paris to settle the case. Stormy interview! Eventually he will be generous.

Thus, Pascal is both rich and free. It is sumptuously furnished house with many servants and hurried away in Paris with a car driven by four or six horses. He spends his time in the company of wits, women and gamblers (as his work on the probabilities shown). It pursues a time, in Auvergne, his work and a lady of great beauty, which he calls the "Sappho of the countryside." At that time, it inspires a speech on the passions of love (which does not appear to be from his hand), and apparently he has meditated on the marriage he later described as "the lowest conditions of life permitted to a Christian. "

Jacqueline reproached him for his frivolity and pray he changes his life. During visits to his sister at Port-Royal in 1654 , it shows contempt for world affairs but he is not attracted by God.

In late 1654 , he has an accident on the bridge of Neuilly , where the horses plunged over the parapet and the car is close to follow. Fortunately, the hitch broke and the car remains balanced on the edge of the bridge. Pascal and his friends leave, but the hypersensitive philosopher, terrified by the nearness of death, fainted and remained unconscious. Returning to him fifteen days later, on 23 November 1654 , between ten and a half and 0:30, Pascal has an intense religious vision that he immediately wrote to himself in a short note, called the Memorial in literature, beginning by: God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not philosophers or scientists ... "and he concluded by quoting Psalm 119.16: "I will not forget those words. Amen. He carefully sewn this document into his coat and still transfers when he changes clothes, and a servant discovered by chance after his death. During his life, Pascal has often been mistakenly regarded as a libertine and, later, he was sidelined as a person who had a conversion on his deathbed. His belief and religious commitment reactivated, Pascal housed in the oldest of the two convents of Port-Royal for a pension of fifteen days in January 1655. During the next four years, he regularly traveled between Paris and Port-Royal des Champs. He started writing immediately after his conversion, his major work on religion, The Provincial.

Pascal took part in the work of translation into French of the Bible , using the principles of the Logic of Port-Royal.

Pascal is also behind the invention of the hydraulic press, based on the principle that bears his name.

He is also the invention of the dray , horse-drawn vehicle designed for transporting goods in barrels.

Blaise Pascal and science

Contributions to mathematics

The Pascal triangle

From the age of sixteen, he began work on what later became the projective geometry. It utilizes and expands the work of a Draft-project events affecting the meetings of the cone with a map of Girard Desargues and those of Apollonius. Thus, in 1640 , he had printed his essay for the tapered and completed in 1648 , a treaty of generatio conisectionum (Generation of conic sections), of which there are only excerpts taken by Leibniz. The major innovation is the Pascal's theorem which states that the hexagram formed by 6 points of a cone has its opposite sides intersecting in three collinear points.

From 1650 , Pascal interested in calculus , and arithmetic to a sequence of integers. Research Treaty of arithmetical triangle in 1654 are an important preparation work of Leibniz on the calculus and he uses it for the first time the principle of mathematical induction. Formalism, which he uses very little, is closer to that of Francois Vieta and Francesco Maurolico that of Descartes.

In this treaty the arithmetical triangle he gives a presentation convenient table of the binomial coefficients , the " arithmetical triangle ", now known as the" Pascal triangle "(a Chinese mathematician in the Qin Dynasty , Yang Hui , had worked four centuries ago on a concept similar to Pascal's triangle and Omar Khayyam , six centuries earlier) that he uses, among others, to solve the " problem parties " (a problem more or less known since XIV ^century). Indeed, the same year, a friend he has submitted questions about sharing "fair" when the stakes gambling could be carried to completion. Pascal corresponds with Fermat , , first through Carcavy , and this exposure of their methods that lead to the same result reinforces the idea that he has managed to invent a " geometry of chance. " This friend was the Chevalier de Mere and the problem was that said "parties": two players decide to stop playing before the end of the game and want to share gains in an equitable manner based on the likelihood that each had managed to win this. The "genius" of Pascal, a genius nurtured his talents as a surveyor and lawyer, was to see emerge the possibility of a mathematical chance, an actual oxymoron in his time, and have approached this problem by Hence the question to solve was to take a fair and just, that is to say fundamentally a question of law. Made aware of this work during a trip to Paris in 1655, Christian Huygens wrote the first treatise on when calculating the likelihood , or probabilities, in which he explicitly introduced the concept of " expectancy " more precisely "the value of hope" a situation of uncertainty. Pascal, later in the Thoughts will use a probabilistic argument, the " Pascal's wager , to justify belief in God and a virtuous life. This argument rests on use of its computing problem of parties to assess the probable weight (his "hope" Huygens say) an uncertain situation and thus make a "rational" decision.

After the mystical experience of 1654 , Pascal abandoned almost completely any work in mathematics. He envisions a time to publish a Promotus Apolloniis Gallus on the mode of what had been achieved a href = "% C3% Fran A7ois_Vi% C3% A8te" alt = "Francois Vieta"> Francois Vieta .

His last scientific work concerning the cycloid. However, in 1658 , it offers an anonymous price for the resolution of the quadrature and rectification of the cycloid and other problems. Solutions proposed by Wallis , Huygens , Wren and others, Pascal, under the pseudonym Dettonville , then quickly publishes its own solution Roulette History (in French and Latin) with a Suite of history Roulette at the end of the year. In 1659 , under the same pseudonym, he sent Huygens a Letter to the size of curved lines.

According to the mathematician Julian Lowell :

"If Pascal had focused on mathematics, it could enrich the subject with some remarkable discoveries. But after his youth, he spent most of his limited capacity to theological questions. "

Philosophy of Mathematics

Axiomatic

The major contribution of Pascal to the philosophy of mathematics is of the mathematical mind, originally written as a preface of a textbook Elements of geometry for the famous little schools of Port-Royal, at the request of Arnold. This work was published a century after his death. Pascal examines the possibilities of discovering the truth , arguing that the ideal for such a method would be based on proposals whose truth is already established. However, he stated that it was impossible to establish because these truths, we should rely on other truths, and that first principles can not be met. From this point of view, Pascal argued that the procedure used in geometry was as perfect as possible, with certain principles, but unproven, and other proposals being developed from them. However, there was no way of knowing if these principles were true.

In The Spirit of Art and geometric persuade Pascal studied more the axiomatic method in geometry, particularly the issue of how people can be convinced by the axioms on which the conclusions are then based. Pascal agreed with Montaigne that achieving certainty about these axioms and conclusions through human methods is impossible. He asserted that these principles could be grasped only by intuition and that this underlined the necessity of submission to God in the search for truth.

In The Spirit and the geometric art of persuasion, Pascal is the epistemology of mathematics. Mathematics based on first principles known intuitively obvious (unfortunately, like Descartes Pascal ignores that word and replace it with: heart, feeling or instinct). It would be futile to try to demonstrate these principles using affirmations obvious less obvious. But mathematics also based on principles of conventional, non-obvious, unproven, and that once admitted, have as much force as precedents (which opened the door to non-Euclidean geometries

Pascal also develops in On the Spirit ... a geometric theory of definition. It distinguishes between definitions which are conventional terms defined by the author and the definitions included in the language and understood by everyone because they naturally designate their referent. The latter are characteristic of the philosophy of gasoline ( essentialism ). Pascal says that only the first type definitions are important for science and mathematics, whereas these areas should adopt the philosophy of formalism, as Descartes has established.

Education

Pascal shows these elements in geometry all his interest in teaching and his thoughts about the pedagogy of mathematics and also another fragment, known through Leibniz, a method of reading that he had discussed with his sister Jacqueline, responsible for teaching in small schools of Port-Royal. It seems he taught himself, with him on several children "in tatters" (from Villandry). In this method of reading, he presents as a new way to learn how to read easily in all kinds of languages, it recommends:

"This method looks primarily those who can not read yet. (...) Each letter with his name, they pronounce it differently than the one assembling with others. (...) It seems the most natural way (...) is to show that those who read, heard first in the children know the letters, by the name of their pronunciation. "

Pascal provides guidance on the order of letters and a number of cases with or without diphthong , etc..

"And then they learn to speak by themselves, and without spelling, syllables that, ci, ge, gi, tia, tie, tii ... "

Contributions to physics

Experience liquors

Pascal under the statue of Saint-Jacques Tower in Paris where he repeated his experiments of Puy-de-Dome on the atmospheric pressure and the weight of the air.

Blaise Pascal also performed the famous experiment of liqueurs (which lead today by Experience liquids), which showed that there was an " atmospheric pressure ". At that time (when science was still closely linked to the scholastic and church ) the idea was common that the " nature abhors a vacuum. " Most scientists assumed that some invisible matter filling space, but it was not an empty space. Of flooding that occurred in Italy and Holland had led to pumping of water to flush the careers of ore from both countries. But the pumps manufactured huge opportunity for left perplexed men of the Church: the height of water in the tubes pumping stopped to 10.33 meters. And this in very different locations. At Clermont , Blaise Pascal is writing a treatise on fluid mechanics. It therefore makes the assumption that a kind of " atmospheric pressure "prevents the water to rise high into the pumps and the empty space occupies the upper tubes. However, it faces some strong spirits of his time and particularly to the Church, which is re-sealing of pumps to ensure that it is not air. But ultimately their work gives them wrong.

Blaise Pascal said, in 1646 with his father in Rouen , the experiments of Torricelli on the vacuum. A record is sent to their friend Chanut (Ambassador of the King in Sweden ). In 1647 , Pascal published his experiments involving new vacuum and a preface to a treatise of the Void (see also empty into the void ), which outlines the basic rules describing the degree to which various liquids could be maintained by the pressure of air. It also provides the reasons for which a vacuum was really on top of the column of liquid in the barometer tube.

He then had the idea of an experience that will make the 19 September 1648 : The atmospheric pressure should be different in city ( Clermont ) and the top of the nearest mountain, the Puy de Dome , where the pressure must be less than the pressure at the city level. Pascal is so transported by his brother, Florin Perier, a tube of Torricelli top of Puy de Dome. Some pastors and scholars after the experiment. With tube-control in the city, the presence of vacuum is demonstrated. He published the story of the great experience of the balance of liquors.

The research ended in 1651 by a Treaty of empty (only fragments are known) and its reduction by Pascal in two treaties of the Balance of liquors and heaviness in the air. In September of this year that his father Stephen died.

The work of Pascal in the study of fluids ( hydrodynamics and hydrostatics ) centered on the principles of hydraulic fluids. He invented the principle of the hydraulic press (called at that time "principle of the vessel of water, using hydraulic pressure to multiply force) and the syringe.

Faced with criticism that some invisible matter existed in the headspace of Pascal Pascal replied to Stephen's Christmas one of the main founders of the scientific method in the ^seventeenth:

"To show that a hypothesis is evident, it is not enough that all the following phenomena: instead of that, if it leads to something contrary to one of the phenomena, that suffices to establish its falsity. "

His insistence on the existence of empty space, also in conflict with many prominent scientists, including Descartes (and perhaps especially for religious reasons).

Writer, philosopher and theologian of the maturity

The Provincial

Blaise Pascal, marble of Pajou Augustine (1785), Muse du Louvre

Antoine Arnauld , a leader of the Jansenists since the death of Jean Duvergier Hauranne , disagreed with the Sorbonne on a bubble of Innocent X (May 1653 ). Seeking to defend his friend, the Marquis de Liancourt, he incurred the wrath of the Sorbonne. The Jansenists sought a champion in Pascal.

Pascal agreed, asserting that he knew (as Sainte-Beuve ) "how we could make this brief, but he could not promise that a" draft "that others would take care of" polish ". Pascal began to publish letters from 23 January 1656 under the pseudonym Louis de Montalto. Pascal memorable launched an attack against the casuistry , a popular ethical method in Catholic thinkers, especially the Jesuits. Pascal denounced casuistry as the use of reasoning to justify a complex moral lax. His method was to argue subtle: the Provincial Letters claiming to be written by Louis de Montalto at provincial Friends and PPRRs Jesuits on the subject of morality and politics of these fathers. It is for a friend who lives in the provinces about discussions on morality and theology, which excited the intellectuals and religious circles of the capital, particularly the Sorbonne. Pascal combined the fervor of a convert and the brilliant mind of a man in the world with a style of prose French unknown so far. Besides their religious influence, the Provincial Letters were a popular literary work. Pascal served as humor, mockery and satire in his nasty arguments, to allow public use of the letters that will influence later French writers like Voltaire , Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, and especially the Persian Letters.

The first letters defending the position of the Jansenists against the Jesuits or Dominicans their opponents (Thomists), issues of power next (letter I), effective or sufficient grace (Letter II), the possibility that grace may miss a just (Letter III). From the fourth letter, Pascal goes on the offensive. His attacks against the authorities shall, according to Jean Lacouture , a polemical as "Voltaire himself never can be achieved with this dazzling" and he named personally written a large number of personalities. The last letters show more defensive Pascal - the pressures on the Port Royal Jansenists to renounce their education are increasing during this time - and contain the attack against the casuistry. Letter XIV has a single excuse: "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have time. "

The series of eighteen letters, published between 1656 and 1657 by Pierre Le Petit , shocks Louis XIV , who ordered in 1660 that the book be shredded and burned. In 1661 , the school Jansenist Port-Royal was condemned and closed in turn, this leads to the signing of a papal bull condemning the teaching of the Jansenists as heretics. The last letter defied the Pope himself, provoking Alexander VII to condemn the letters on September 6 1657. But this did not prevent France cultivated to read them.

Pope Alexander VII , when he publicly opposed them, was convinced by the arguments of Pascal. He ordered a review of texts casuistic just a few years later, in 1665 and 1666. Pope Innocent XI condemned the " laxity "in the Church in 1679.

Provincials have been widely disseminated as they become available, more than ten thousand copies.

Voltaire found them "the best book ever published in France," and when asked Jacques Benignus Bossuet what book he would have liked to write, he said, the Provincial Letters of Pascal.

Jean Lacouture (Jesuits) cites other assessments, those of Henry Gouhier and Francois Mauriac.

About the impact that passed the Provincials in their historical context, Jean Lacouture quotes the historian Marc Fumaroli (see Copernican Revolution: the tarnished image of the Church during the Enlightenment ).

Posterity

The Pascaline.

In honor of his scientific contributions, the name Pascal has been given to the unit pressure of the international system , a programming language and Pascal's law (an important principle of hydrostatics ) and, as mentioned above, the Pascal's triangle and Pascal's wager still bear his name.

The development of probability theory is the contribution of Pascal's largest mathematics. Originally applied to gambling, it is now used in economics, particularly in actuarial science. John Ross wrote:

"Probability theory and findings that follow have changed the way we view the uncertainty, risk, decision making and the ability of an individual or company to influence the course of future events.

Calculating machine Pascal - Encyclopedia.

However, it should be noted that Pascal and Fermat , which carry out pioneering work in probability theory, have not developed very far from this field of study. Christian Huygens , studying the question in 1655 from hearsay about correspondence between Pascal and Fermat, wrote the first book on the subject . Jacob Bernoulli , Pierre Rmond Montmort , Abraham de Moivre , Thomas Bayes , Nicolas de Condorcet and Pierre-Simon Laplace are among the authors who prolonged development of the theory, those whose contribution has been greatest in the eighteenth century.

In Canada , an annual competition of mathematics in his honor is called "Pascal Contest" is open to any student in Canada under 14 years old and in Grade ⁹ at most.

In computing , the Pascal is a programming language created by Niklaus Wirth and named in honor of Blaise Pascal.

The University of Clermont-Ferrand II was baptized in his name and a University of Cordoba in Argentina.

The Bank of France has issued a bank note, the Pascal 500 francs , its highest break from 1969 to 1994, with his effigy.

In literature, Pascal is regarded as one of the most important authors of the French classical period and is read today as one of the greatest masters of French prose. His use of satire and the spirit has influenced later polemicists. We remember well the content of his literary work because of his strong opposition to the rationalism of Rene Descartes and the simultaneous assertion that philosophical empiricism was also insufficient for determining major truths.

Chateaubriand has described his contributions in a famous lyrical ending with "(he) spoke the language fixed Bossuet and Racine, gave the model of perfect joke, as the reasoning that the strongest (...) scary genius named Blaise Pascal. "

Barbey d'Aurevilly Pascal sees a "Hamlet of Catholicism." Baudelaire paraphrasing and dedicates his poem "The Abyss".

A discussion of Pascal and his "bet" prominently in the film My Night at Maud 's French director Eric Rohmer.

Pascal meditation on entertainment is a continuation in the novel of Jean Giono , a king without entertainment (1947). Giono borrows the title and the last sentence of the book to a passage of Thoughts (fragment 142 of the Brunschvicg edition): "A king without entertainment is a man full of misery. "

For Julian Green , Pascal "The greatest of the French" .

Sister Emmanuelle , in his book Living, what's the point? (Editions J'ai Lu) is based on some principles of Pascal's thought that was a guide for her throughout her life.,

Towards the end of his life the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu published a book of reflections on his field which is entitled Meditations pascaliennes .

List of major works

The exact chronology of the works of Pascal is difficult to establish because many texts are not dated and were published long after being drafted. Some have been known a century or more after the death of Pascal and others do not have survived as fragmentary or indirect (Leibniz notes or correspondence, for example).

• Test for Conical ( 1642 )
• New experiments involving a vacuum ( 1647 )
• Narrative of the experience of the balance of liquors ( 1648 )
• Treaty of arithmetical triangle ( 1654 )
• The Provincial (Matches 1656 - 1657 )
• Element geometry ( 1657 )
• Spirit of the geometric and the art of persuasion ( 1657 )
• Roulette History ( 1658 )
• The art of persuasion ( 1660 )
• Thoughts ( 1670 , posthumous)

Quotes

• "Unable to strengthen justice, we justify force."
• "The self is hateful"
• "I can not understand the whole if I do not know the parties, and I can not understand the parts if I do not know everything. "
• "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me. "
• "The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing. "
• "The Human Condition. Inconstancy, boredom, anxiety. "
• "A king without entertainment is a man full of misery. "
• "Two extremes: to exclude reason, to admit that reason. " Thoughts (214-253)

References

Notes

Leave a Reply