Étienne Pascal (; 2 May 1588 – 24 September 1651) was a French chief tax officer and the father of

Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest ...

Biography

Pascal was born in Clermont to Martin Pascal, the treasurer of France, and Marguerite Pascal de Mons. He had three daughters, two of whom survived past childhood: Gilberte (1620–?) and

Jacqueline Jacqueline may refer to: People * Jacqueline (given name), including a list of people with the name * Jacqueline Moore (born 1964), ring name "Jacqueline", American professional wrestler Arts and entertainment * ''Jacqueline'' (1923 film), ...

(1625–1661). His wife Antoinette Begon died in 1626. He was a tax official, lawyer, and a wealthy member of the '' petite noblesse'', who also had an interest in science and mathematics. He was trained in the law at Paris and received his law degree in 1610. That year, he returned to Clermont and purchased the post of counsellor for Bas-Auvergne, the area surrounding Clermont. In 1631, five years after his wife's death, Pascal moved with his children to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. They hired Louise Delfault, a maid who eventually became an instrumental member of the family. Pascal, who never remarried, decided to home-educate his children, who showed extraordinary intellectual ability, particularly his son Blaise. Pascal served on a scientific committee (whose members included Pierre Hérigone and Claude Mydorge) to determine whether Jean-Baptiste Morin's scheme for determining

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek let ...

from the Moon's motion was practical. The

limaçon In geometry, a limaçon or limacon , also known as a limaçon of Pascal or Pascal's Snail, is defined as a roulette curve formed by the path of a point fixed to a circle when that circle rolls around the outside of a circle of equal radius. I ...

was first studied and named by Pascal, and so this mathematical curve is often called Pascal's limaçon. Pascal died in

Notes

External links

* 1588 births 1651 deaths Scientists from Clermont-Ferrand 17th-century French judges 17th-century French mathematicians Blaise Pascal {{France-law-bio-stub