What do you think of Blaise Pascal?

[julie09]

[RavVid]

Pascal is simply a hero of science. The unit of pressure is named after him for gods sake and it doesn't get more legendary than that.

Issac Newton said he saw further because he stood on the shoulders of giants. I think 300 hundred years later he can be fairly said to be a giant on whom others have stood.

[julie09]

What’s also impressive is the age at which he achieved this; when you look at the various geniuses this world has produced, you very quickly feel tiny.

[RavVid]

Oh very much so.

My fav mathematician though is Joseph Fourier because of Fourier transforms because without those a large part of electrical engineering would simply disappear. He showed that any waveform can be seen as a combination of sinusoids. That might not seem big deal but it is.

[abc3643]

He has a very nice triangle...

Pascal was an important scientist - both in mathematics and the physical sciences. He was a generation older than Isaac Newton.

The SI unit of pressure is named after him.

1 pascal (Pa) = the force of 1 newton (N) acting perpendicular to an area of 1 square meter (m^2)
So, 1 Pa = 1 N/m^2.

That's not a very big unit.
1 standard atmosphere (1 atm) of pressure is 101325 Pa or 101.325 kPa.

Sometimes, the unit "bar" or, better, "millibar" is used.
1 bar = 100000 Pa = 100 kPa.
So, 1 millibar = 100 Pa = 1hPa..
This means that a standard atmosphere is 1013.25 millibars.

In US weather reporting, the atmospheric pressure is often given in millibars or inches of mercury ("in Hg") assuming a standard temperature of 15 ℃. 1 atm = 29.92 in Hg.

I prefer pascals as the unit of pressure. When I worked with steam and gas turbines, we used pascals.

[jennifer_bloom]

One of the most interesting activities that I was exposed to in high school was briefly reading historical theories and ideologies by famous philosophers in my history book. At this age, I do not remember most of those ideas but I do recall that studying them fascinated me and made me super happy. If you post about him and what he believed, I will read it.

[lightbulb27]

One smart cookie... and a French one at that! French people so smart, leaders back in their day. He'd be having a blast today.

My first language was... Pascal. Very wordy, C++ better.

I think I'll go have AI write a Pascal program just for fun. Oh, the good ole days.

Beyond that, no idea what he was like as a person.

My question is why are French so advanced... esp back then. They were dominant in Math ideas, flight, and making cookies. If you go to parts of Tokyo, it's dang near France there... just Japanese version.

[OneViewpoint]

Cool guy. A minor player in the development of science with Pascal's Law and contributions to probability math which has become the foundation of quantum theory. The field of measuring probability, not Pascal's specific contributions. Some philosophy with Pascal's Wager and other thoughts on humanity.

[exitseven]

I don;t know much about him except that a I had to learn a computer language that was named after him

[julie09]

Yes, the programming language was named after Blaise Pascal. The funny part is that Pascal was already doing original mathematics at 16, invented a mechanical calculator at 19, helped found probability theory in his twenties, and made major contributions to physics and geometry — all before dying at 39.

[KostasKouvalis]

Never heard of him, but sounds like a smart fellow

[julie09]

Pascal was already doing original mathematics at 16, invented a mechanical calculator at 19, helped found probability theory in his twenties, and made major contributions to physics and geometry — all before dying at 39.

[KostasKouvalis]

Nice.
39? That's sad :(

[msc545]

Definitely like his triangle. He was a brilliant mathematician.

[browsingthroughthe]

Relative of Pedro? 🤣

[MrChinaski]

Apart from his triangle, I know nothing.

[Staximus]

He sure had a fancy hairdo

[Iron_Man]

I don’t know him, Miss France

[strateguy632]

He was smart.