Étienne Pascal
Étienne Pascal (; 2 May 1588 – 24 September 1651) was a French chief tax officer and the father of Blaise Pascal. Biography Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand, 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 Pascal, Jacqueline (1625–1661). His wife Antoinette Begon died in 1626. He was a tax official, lawyer, and a wealthy member of the ''Nobles of the Robe, 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. They hired Louise Delfault, a maid who eventually became an instrumental member of the family. Pascal, who never remarried, decided to home-e ...
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Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest mathematical work was on conic sections; he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of 16. He later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social sciences, social science. In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines (called Pascal's calculators and later Pascalines), establishing him as one of the first two inventors of the mechanical calculator. Like his contemporary René Descartes, Pascal was also a pioneer in the natural and applied sciences. Pascal wrote in defense of the scientific method and produced several controversial results. He made important contribu ...
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