Blaise Pascal was a French religious thinker, mathematician, and physicist who was born in Clermont-Ferrand in central France on June 19, 1623. Pascal had two sisters named Gilberte and Etienne, who thought of him as a prodigy. His mother passed away in June of 1626, as a result the family moved to France in 1631. After his family moved to France, Pascal's father temporarily withdrew from the government service. He was a high ranking civil servant and an expert in mathematics. He withdrew so he could spend time educating his children because he disagreed with the education given to children at school. .
At the age of twelve Pascal figured out a concept of Euclidean geometry by himself. Pascal's father didn't expose him to mathematics until he reached the age of sixteen. When he reached the age of sixteen it was discovered that he was a true genius at mathematics and science, which enabled him to help his father with scientific gatherings. By the time he was seventeen he wrote an essay on conic sections, which is, a work in projective geometry that contained a theorem on conic sections that was named after him. .
At the age of eighteen Pascal invented the adding machine, which is now known as the calculator. Pascal's main purpose was to help his father out when he was selected to be the representative of the king regarding all of the financial matters in upper Normandy. The principles of this adding machine were extended into a hand-cranked calculator during the 18th and 19th century, and by the 20th century, the electronic computer began to replace the adding machines. .
Another significant branch of mathematics that Pascal worked on during the 17th century was Probability. Probability deals with the odds of observing one of the several outcomes that can occur in an event. In Probability, an event is a single happening-sometimes called a trial- and an outcome is one of the possible results.
