Photo: Clermont Auvergne Métropole, Bibliothèque du patrimoine, GRA 6025, CC BY-SA 4.0

Blaise Pascal

1623 – 1662 · died at about 39^[1][2]

Science & Invention

Fun Facts About Blaise Pascal

• Blaise Pascal is credited as the inventor of modern public transportation. Shortly before his death he launched horse-drawn carriages on fixed routes at a fixed price of five sols.^[1]
• Before he turned 19, Pascal built a mechanical calculator, the Pascaline, to ease his tax-collector father's endless calculations of taxes.^[1]
• Pascal's essay on conics at 16 was so advanced that René Descartes was convinced Pascal's father had written it.^[1][3][4]
• After an intense religious experience in 1654, Pascal wrote a note beginning "Fire" and seems to have sewn it into his coat. A servant found it only by chance after his death.^[1]
• The theory of probability was born from letters between Pascal and Pierre de Fermat about gambling problems.^[1]
• Pascal took the sudden end of a toothache as a heavenly sign to keep working on the cycloid. Eight days later he had finished his essay on it.^[1]
• Blaise Pascal was alive at the same time as Francis Bacon — their lives overlapped for 3 years (1623–1626).^[1][2][5][6]
• Blaise Pascal shares a birthday with Muammar Gaddafi: both were born on June 19.^[1][2][7][8]

Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer.^[1]

Contemporaries

Rembrandt

39 yr overlap

Molière

39 yr overlap

Diego Velázquez

37 yr overlap

Oliver Cromwell

35 yr overlap

John Locke

30 yr overlap

Johannes Vermeer

30 yr overlap

Christopher Wren

30 yr overlap

Baruch Spinoza

30 yr overlap

René Descartes

27 yr overlap

Louis XIV

24 yr overlap

Galileo Galilei

19 yr overlap

Isaac Newton

19 yr overlap

Their World

Questions About Blaise Pascal

When was Blaise Pascal born?

Blaise Pascal was born on June 19, 1623, and died on August 19, 1662.

How old was Blaise Pascal at death?

Blaise Pascal was born on June 19, 1623, and died on August 19, 1662, at age 39.

What was Blaise Pascal known for?

Blaise Pascal was known for: Mathematician, physicist and author of the Pensées. Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer.

Who was alive at the same time as Blaise Pascal?

Blaise Pascal's closest contemporary was Rembrandt. Their lives overlapped for 39 years.