Blaise Pascal was born on June 19, 1623. He was the
son of a local judge in Claremont. His parents did not want him to go outside
because they feared he would be over worked, they didn't want him to be
overworked because they saw his enormous possibilities. He was not allowed
to study mathematics. Having his parents try to keep him from math sparked
a high interest, and by age 12 he was working on geometry. Pascal invented
and sold the first calculating machine at age 18, and eight years later he
further improved his invention. He discovered that the sum of a triangle's
angel equal the same as two right angles. His proof was that he took a
triangular piece of paper and then he folded it over to meet in the center
of the inscribed circle. One similar demonstration can be given by turning
the angular points over to meet at the foot of the perpendicular drawn from
the biggest angel to the opposite side. He showed this to his father. His
father was amazed by this demonstration and quickly gave him a copy of the book Euclid's Elements, which Pascal soon read and mastered.
Two players of equal skill want to leave the table before finishing their
game. Their scores and the number of points which constitute the game being given, it is desired to find in what proportion they should divid the stakes. His Proof When Pascal
was 14 he was admitted to the weekly meetings of Roberval, Mersenne, Mydorge
, and other French geometricians. Pascal
employed his arithmetical triangle in 1653, but no account was given to his
method until 1665. The triangle helps names the coefficients of the
expansion of a binomial. The numbers in the 5th row, 1,4,6,4,1 are the
coefficients of (a+b)^4 (to the fourth power)
He wrote an essay, titled,
"Geometry of Conics" in 1639, it was not published till 1779.
Pascal is perhaps best known as a mathematician for his theory of probabilities. He
came to this theory from the problem: 
