Blaise Pascal was born at Clermont on June 19, 1623 as the third of four children and the only son to Étienne Pascal. Blaise grew up without a mother, who died when he was only three years old. His father had dissident educational views and decided to educate his son himself, however, Étienne decided that Blaise was not to study mathematics before the age of fifteen. Therefore, he removed all mathematic texts from their house.
Although he was told not to study mathematics, Blaise became curious and began to work on geometry himself at the age of twelve. He discovered that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. When his father found out, he gave in and allowed Blaise to have a copy of Euclid's Elements, a book written by a Greek mathematician best known for his treatise on geometry. From there, Blaise expanded his knowledge of mathematics and soon began to accompany his father to Mersnne's meetings. Mersenne was known for his work in number theory and......
Join Now or Login to view the rest of this paper.
Approximate Word Count: 678
Approximate Pages: 3 (260 words per double-spaced page) |