Pascal's Triangle And The Adding Machine example essay topic

Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal was born on June 19, 1623 in Clermont-Ferrand, France and died August 19, 1662 of stomach cancer. Pascal was not only a great mathematician, he was also a man of great knowledge. Philosopher, mathematician, inventor, and scientific genius are just a few of the things he became in his life. Pascal helped create many things for this world as a whole, like when he invented the barometer, the hydraulic press, and of course (my personal favorite) the syringe. To the mathematical world he was a god, and he is most well known for creating "Pascal's Triangle" and the adding machine, otherwise known as a calculator (then it was called the "Pascal ine".

) As a boy Pascal took his free time to study mathematics, specifically geometry. He was intrigued by the fact that so many things could be quite possibly perfect and so precise. He immediately began drawing his own conclusions in the world of geometric's. That was when he began to discover things such as "Pascal's triangle", which everyone who took high school mathematics, specifically geometry, should recognize. He wrote papers on his theories of conic sections, which are defined in Algebra two, used in a higher sense of mathematics and geometry as well. He even published discoveries on his thoughts of vacuums.

Vacuums were a crazy man's play land back in the day. The barometer, the triangle, conics, vacuum theories and the adding machine were all very big discoveries. The barometer, which we are all familiar with, is still used by meteorologists today! "Pascal's triangle" is used in today's mathematical theories.

The vacuum theories by Pascal, as well as Einstein are still considered today, so that goes without saying that his adding machine has part in the present as well. But in relation to the computer world, the idea that is very close to the one we use today in computing, was "addition inside a machine". Seems like a simple enough ploy, doesn't it? It's addition. To help his father's business, which was a tax agency, Pascal decided to see if he could create something that would allow mathematical calculating with ease.

This idea struck him in 1642: use addition. He created a machine in which addition was used to make all the correct calculations of any elementary mathematical problem. The machine would add, and when it needed to subtract, it would add the complement, or negative version of the positive inter gers. Multiplication and division were merely programmed as subdivisions of this idea. The machine would add its way through any mathematical problem.

Computers and calculators today use that same general technique in their mathematical doings as well. So this proves that Pascal was a genius. Everything important he discovered is still used in America today!

Bibliography

1. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), web Pascal. html, 7/19/012. Blaise Pascal, web 7/20/013.1640 AD Blaise Pascal's Arithmetic Machine, web 7/20/01 Blaise Pascal, web 7/21/014.1642 Blaise Pascal, web 7/21/01.