Blaise Pascal 2

This snippet of Blaise's life or la vie de Blaise (all corrections to my French are welcome) I learnt from 'A Slice of Pi' by Liz Stracham.  Apparently Blaise's father wanted him to learn Latin and Greek before he tackled maths, but one day he found him writing with coal on a garden wall, writing out a proof that all angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees. So after that, the father let his son study maths and he went on to great heights in mathematics including lots of work on the Theory of Probability.

Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand. Clermont-Ferrand is in the Auvergne region of France. It's looks close enough to being smack bang in the middle of France.

Pascal has stuck in my head for years. I have this vision of making a short film in France that would feature Blaise Pascal transporting a barometer over the brow of a rural hill. A few tufts of grass and a worn track of dried light brown mud and two men carrying a glass tube on either side with a third and fourth on hand to help. Pascal carried out an experiment with quicksilver in glass tubes to test his theories on vacuums and air pressure.

It's a nice portrait.  I think he looks like a kindly, happy man, wide open friendly eyes and the hint of smile at the edge of his lips.  I don't know who painted the portrait.