Excerpt from Pens�es de Pascal, Vol. 1: Dispos�es Suivant un Plan Nouveau, d'Apr�s les Derniers Travaux Critiques, Avec des Notes, un Index Et une Pr�face
Cette nouvelle �dition des Pens�es de Pascal doit son origine � deux remarques de M. Sainte Beuve, qu'il convient de rappeler. Il dit, en parlant de l'�dition de M. Faug�re: Le livre, �videmment, dans son �tat de d�composition et perc� � jour comme il est, ne saurait plus avoir aucun effet d'�difieation sur le public. Comme oeuvre apolog�tique, on peut dire qu'il a fait son temps Aucun admirateur de Pascal ne saurait souscrire � un jugement si absolu et si excessif et, pour notre part, nous n'en avons pas eu plus t�t connaissance que nous nous sommes demand� comment on pourrait pr�venir un si grand malheur.
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Among the contemporaries of Descartes none displayed greater natural genius than Pascal, but his mathematical reputation rests more on what he might have done than on what he actually effected, as during a considerable part of his life he deemed it his duty to devote his whole time to religious exercises.
At 16, Pascal began designing a calculating machine, which he finally perfected when he was thirty, the pascaline, a beautiful handcrafted box about fourteen by five by three inches. The first accurate mechanical calculator was born.
Pascal was dismayed and disgusted by society's reactions to his machine and completely renounced his interest in science an mathematics, devoting the rest of his life to God. He is best known for his collection of spiritual essays, Les Pensees.
Ironically, Pascal, who was a genius by any measure, with one of the finest brains of all time, died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 39.
Among the contemporaries of Descartes none displayed greater natural genius than Pascal, but his mathematical reputation rests more on what he might have done than on what he actually effected, as during a considerable part of his life he deemed it his duty to devote his whole time to religious exercises.
He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a Tax Collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli.
In 1646, he and his sister Jacqueline identified with the religious movement within Catholicism known by its detractors as Jansenism. Following a mystical experience in late 1654, he had his "second conversion", abandoned his scientific work, and devoted himself to philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the Lettres provinciales and the Pensees.
In honor of his scientific contributions, the name Pascal has been given to the SI unit of pressure, to a programming language, and Pascal's law (an important principle of hydrostatics), and as mentioned above, Pascal's triangle and Pascal's wager still bear his name.
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