Abstract
Blaise Pascal was inherently multifaceted, a characteristic of the Renaissance that had almost become passé in the 17th century. The natural sciences (say, physics and mathematics) had not yet completely separated from the humanities, but studies in the humanities and the natural sciences were already no longer commonly combined.
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References
Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), translated by Richard Howard, David R. Godine, Boston. Translation copyright 1983 by Richard Howard. Reprinted with permission from the publisher.
In evaluating Mersenne’s work, we should keep in mind that the first scientific journal, Journal des Savants, was founded in 1665.
Accompanying the dedication of the machine. This appears in Pascal’s Oeuvres Complètes, pp. 353 ff.—Transl.
This English translation appears in An Honest Thief and Other Stories, translated by Constance Garnett, MacMillan, New York, 1923, p. 277.
Yuri Tinyanov (1894–1943), a famous Russian author, wrote Podporuchik Kizhe, in which the title and the name of the main character are based on a play on words.
From Expériences Nouvelles Touchant le Vide, in Oeuvres, p. 369.
Oeuvres, pp. 370 ff.
An English translation of this letter appears in The Physical Treatises of Pascal, translated by I. H. B. and A. G. H. Spiers, Columbia University Press, New York, 1937, p. 101.
Ibid., pp. 65–66. Based on Pascal’s description of the value of the French pound (livre) at the time, this equals 3.3 × 1018 kg. Current estimates are on the order of 5 × 1018 kg.—Transl.
Oeuvres, p. 597.
From Gilberte Périer’s La Vie de Monsieur Pascal (The Life of Mr. Pascal), in Pascal’s Oeuvres, p. 15.
Ibid., p. 55.
Taken from Elements of the History of Mathematics, the English translation by John Meldrum of Éléments d’Histoire des Mathématiques, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1991, p. 190.
Oeuvres, pp. 522–523.
The following quotations are taken from Pensées, pp. 21–123, passim.—Transl.
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(2007). Blaise Pascal. In: Tales of Mathematicians and Physicists. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-48811-0_5
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