Works of Blaise Pascal - World of Biography

Major works of Blaise Pascal are listed below :

1640	ESSAY ON CONIC SECTIONS
1647	EXPERIMENTS CONCERNING VACUUM
1648	THE GENERATION OF CONIC SECTIONS
1653	TREATISE ON THE ARITHMETICAL TRIANGLE
1653	TREATISE ON THE EQUILIBRIUM OF LIQUIDS
1654	THEORY OF PROBABILITY
1656-57	PROVINCIAL LETTERS
1657-59	PENSEES
1658	CYCLOID

ESSAY ON CONIC SECTIONS

Blaise Pascal At the age of 16, Pascal wrote an essay on the sections of a cone, called Treatise on Conic Sections, which includes his famous theorem of hexagons. Today this essay is known as Pascal’s Theorem. Pascal’s essay was much praised, not only within his circle, but also beyond the boundaries of Paris. For this pure mathematical work, he was considered as one of the great scientific minds of those times.

His early essay on the Geometry of Conics written in 1640, had not been published till 1779. It was an essay which mentioned important and interesting results of his theorem. The first theorem, known now as Pascal’s theorem explains that if a hexagon be inscribed in a conic, the points of intersection of the opposite sides will lie in a straight line. The second theorem explains that if a quadrilateral were to be inscribed in a conic, and a straight line be drawn cutting the sides taken in order at the points A, B, C and D, and if the conic in P and Q, then the equation is :

PA x PC : PB x PD = QA x QC : QB x QD.

FIRST 'DIGITAL' CALCULATOR

Pascal gained fame early in his life with his work on conic sections. Pascal proved his genius in technical matters in 1645, when he invented the first calculating machine. He worked on it for three years, from 1642 to 1645. The automatic device, which he invented to help his father in his work of calculating taxes, was called the Pascaline. It closely resembled the first popular calculator of 1940. Pascal was the second person to have invented a calculator for it was Schickard who had manufactured the first one in 1624.

Pascal had to face some problems in designing the calculator because at that time, the pattern of the French currency was strange. There were 20 sols in a livre and 12 deniers in a sol; a similar pattern had lasted in Britain till as late as 1971, while in France it expired in 1799. Pascal had to work hard to solve the technical problems. He took patent on his invention and started mass production in 1642. However, Adamson has noted, "By 1652, 50 prototypes had been produced, but few machines were sold and manufacture of Pascal’s arithmetical calculator ceased in that year."

Whatever the hurdles, Pascal’s machine was regarded as the first digital calculator. Very humbly, Pascal dedicated the machine to the chancellor of France, Pierre Siguier, in 1644.

EXPERIMENTS AS A PHYSICIST

Blaise Pascal Pascal was perhaps the first scientist who felt the necessity of turning away entirely from the world, towards God. He gave up his scientific researches and persuits for a year and spent that time as a spiritual adviser to his family. But the conflict between the scientist and the ascetic personality was not resolved. Eventually, the scientist won and Pascal forayed into the researches in 1647. He worked on the theories of Galileo Galilei and Evangelista Torricelli, an Italian physicist who discovered the principle of the barometer, as discussed earlier. Pascal began a series of experiments on atmospheric pressure. By the end of the year, he could prove that vacuum undoubtedly existed. On September 23, Rene Descartes visited him; he did not accept Pascal’s discovery. He disgracefully mentioned in a letter to Huygens, that Pascal has too many vacuums in his head.

But Pascal was not the one to give up and he continued his experiments on atmospheric pressure by constructing mercury barometers and measuring air pressure. He carried out some of his experiments on the top of the mountain of Puy de Dome. The tests opened the doors for further studies in hydrodynamics and hydrostatics. Pascal invented the syringe and created the hydraulic press. The instrument was based upon the principle that became known as Pascal’s Law of Pressure. The law states, Pressure applied to a confined liquid is transmitted undiminished through the liquid in all directions regardless of the area to which the pressure is applied.

Pascal explained his law of pressure in his Treatise on the Equilibrium of Liquids, in 1653. As Adamson writes, "This treatise is a complete outline of a system of hydrostatics, the first in the history of science, it embodies his most distinctive and important contribution to physical theory."