On June 19, 2023, La Poste issues a stamp bearing the image of Blaise PASCAL, French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, moralist and theologian on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of his birth.
Blaise Pascal: a genius. The man transcends all categories to establish himself as one of the most striking figures of the world's human and cultural heritage.
Born in Clermont-Ferrand on June 19, 1623, he died in Paris on August 19, 1662. But he also lived in Rouen, established a program to drain the marshes of Poitou, fueling scientific reflection in Europe of his time.
Mathematics and physics first caught his attention. At sixteen, he composes an Essay on Conics. At thirty, he laid the foundations of the calculation of probabilities and wrote the Treatise on the Arithmetic Triangle. At thirty-five, he solves the geometric problem of the cycloid or "roulette". Pascal also demonstrated the existence of a vacuum. His work on atmospheric pressure led him to give his name to the unit of measurement associated with it: the “pascal” (Pa).
But the young scientist is not only concerned with intellectual speculation. His father having been appointed tax commissioner in Rouen by Richelieu, he designed an arithmetic machine to help him with his calculations. This “pascaline” is the first calculator in history. By its mode of operation, it heralds computing. As for Pascal's reflections, in the presentation text with which he accompanies his invention, they show that he is meditating on something akin to... artificial intelligence.
Visionary? Pascal, from the outset, does not think less of the marketing of his machine. A futuristic entrepreneur, he founded in 1662, in Paris, with the "coaches with five floors", ancestors of the bus, the first urban public transport company. This activity, however intense, unfolds in the interstices of an even more fervent spiritual and religious life. Seized from 1646 by the Augustinian theology and the conception of the faith of which Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbot of Saint-Cyran, and the monastery of Port-Royal are the heralds, Pascal works from then on to lead a life in harmony with the great principles of Christianity: charity, reign of the heart and the spirit, respect for the poor and the humble, against all the selfish and material impulses of the fallen creature. Haunted by the fear that God would abandon him, dazzled by a few hours of mystical evidence that occurred the night of November 23 to 24, 1654, he committed himself to Port-Royal, which had been persecuted since the publication of Augustinus by Jansenius. Pascal turns out to be an exceptional polemicist. A defender of the truth, he composed flamboyant Provinciales: they earned him the admiration of all his contemporaries. Funny, passionate, brilliant, formidably informed, these eighteen “little letters” denounce in all tones the moral tricks and the hypocrites of the casuists. Pascal, finally, devoted the last years of his life to the elaboration of a great work of which only fragments remain collected under the name of Pensées. He proposed to show that it was reasonable to believe, and that there is no faith without a fervent love. Geometric rigor, incandescent poetry, straight prophecy from the Scriptures, understanding of the other and of the misery of the human condition, irony, power of thought, make this crumbly book a monument to the human soul. Blaise Pascal died at thirty-nine years and two months.
