Blaise Pascal summary

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Blaise Pascal, (born June 19, 1623, Clermont-Ferrand, France—died Aug. 19, 1662, Paris), French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. The son of a mathematician, he was a child prodigy, earning the envy of René Descartes with an essay he wrote on conic sections in 1640. In the 1640s and ’50s he made contributions to physics (formulating Pascal’s law) and mathematics (working on the arithmetic triangle, inventing a calculating machine, and contributing to the advance of differential calculus). For work done in his early years, he is regarded as the founder of the modern theory of probability. At the same time, he became increasingly involved with Jansenism. Les Provinciales were a series of letters defending Jansenism and attacking the Jesuits. His great work of Christian apologetics, Apologie de la religion chrétienne, was never finished, but he put together most of his notes and fragments between 1657 and 1658; these were published posthumously as Pensées (1670). He returned to scientific work, contributing to the Élements de géométrie and publishing his findings on cycloid curves, but he soon returned to devotional life and spent his last years helping the poor. The pascal was named in his honour. See also Pascal’s wager.

Roman Catholicism Summary

Roman Catholicism, Christian religion that has been the decisive spiritual force in the history of Western civilization. Along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, it is one of the three major branches of Christianity. It is led by the pope, as the bishop of Rome, and the Holy See forms the

conic section Summary

Conic section, in geometry, any curve produced by the intersection of a plane and a right circular cone. Depending on the angle of the plane relative to the cone, the intersection is a circle, an ellipse, a hyperbola, or a parabola. Special (degenerate) cases of intersection occur when the plane

essay Summary

Essay, an analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subject from a limited and often personal point of view. Some early treatises—such as those of Cicero on the

apologetics Summary

Apologetics, in Christianity, the intellectual defense of the truth of the Christian religion, usually considered a branch of theology. In Protestant usage, apologetics can be distinguished from polemics, in which the beliefs of a particular Christian church are defended. Roman Catholics, however,